Rebuild:Capital Wasteland
by JonScoe
Summary: The war against the Enclave is over, now the hard part awaits. The wasteland needs to be rebuild.
1. Introduction

Fallout: Rebuild.

Chapter 1 Prologue:

He was called the Lone Wanderer, the saviour of capital wasteland. He was now standing from The Jefferson Memorial, the year and half since he escaped from the Vault have changed the Wasteland. The wind of change was in the air. The gigantic turbines pumped out fresh, non-radioactive water into the Basin. It would takes some time before the non radioactive water was gone, but no at least fresh water was not a luxury for the fews, but a right for everyone. But that was not all. For the first time could innocent bystanders scavenge the ruins without a big risk of meeting mutants or other threats.

From the oasis seeds blow up in the wastelands and for the first time you could see grass blooming some places. In a season or two people for the first time would see flowers, this was truly the age of a new era. But it does not mean that there were no problems. Still the slavers of Paradise falls kidnapped random people and sold them. Even though the Pitt had been closed they always found a route to skip them too. Rumors had it that they were co-operating with the slavers, effectively splitting the wasteland into two.

But with the enclave in ruins, the super mutant threat over and a strong Brotherhood, for the first time there was a chance to create a civilization here. And it had already started.

The Brotherhood of Steel had been the De-facto rulers of the former Capital, and they could appreciate the benefits of peace and having a society. Therefore they started patroling the areas around the Mall. In the wasteland there were no place more secure. Unfortunately they were stretched thin. The Brotherhood had tried to arrange patrols around the Mall, but many raiders had slipped behind them and did what they did to innocent people. The good news was that they were starting to be fever and fever of them. After the raping, killing and cannibalism of a family trying to establish themselves in the ruins, the Brotherhood changed their tactics. Three months later and seven raiders camp were gone from the map, primarily the ones that were established in the ruins of the capital.

He took another sip of the beer. One of the few luxury items he had allowed himself to join the last months.

"Elder Lyons is ready" said a voice behind him.

War, War never changes, but with Peace anything could happen. What power was the strongest? He stepped down and went in to the Memorial, the sun slowly rising from the mountains.


	2. The process of making peace

Chapter 2: **The rebuilding starts here!**

The memorial was a neutral place to meet. Some people did not like the citadel and saw it as a fortress that the Brotherhood could keep people imprisoned and rule from, fortunately the same people was also courious too see the first beacon of hope containing water. After securing Jefferson Memorial the Brotherhood brought in some generators that made it light and easy around the area. The lower areas was also cleaned up and was being the living quarters for some of the Brotherhoods technician that wanted to study and maintain the area. Two Brotherhood of Steel soliders, often called Steels guarded the area with laser rifle gun in standby position.

The Lone wanderer entered a office where five people waited for him. They were Elder Lyons, the leader of the Brotherhood and the nearest the place came to a Leader. Sheriff Simms of Megatron, leader in everything bout the for the second biggest settlement of the Wasteland. There was also Gared, The leader of the board of Rivet City and Santiago, leader of the Regulators and Hannibal Hamlin, a man that had founded the Union, an organization that gave escaped slaves a haven, and there were more and more of them arriving for all over the place. He had a colony of 63 runaway slaves camping around the lincoln memorial. This was also starting to be a problem since slaves attracted slavers, and he only had 10 men capable of handling a combat situation. Two times had the slavers tried to attack the camp, but both time had they been rebuffed by the surroundings and gave up before they even came to camp. Had not the Brotherhood scouts seen them they would never have noticed.

" Welcome, we were just waiting for you" said Lyons greeting the Lone Wanderer who sat down at the end of the table. They were now all gathered in a horse shoe formation around a table that once had too belong in a boardroom, there was an inscription on the board, but he could not read it. TLW sat down on the far end of the table.

Elder Lyons started speaking. He was an old man, but still pretty in shape and clear minded, he was the leader of the Brotherhood and was a man that had great power around the wasteland.

" Thanks for showing up for the third of this security meeting for the Capital Wasteland. I will begin by summary up the briefings for our patrols the last month.

First of all, The mamelurks will be extinct from the Basin in short time. The patrol are reporting more and more corpses and less and less live ones. We can now accept that the fresh water is something they cant drink. Even though the rivers are now much more safe, it means that we have one less source of food." Lyons took a sip from the Aqua Pura.

" We can also report of a big increase of refugees coming from...basically everywhere. Runaway slaves, scavenger and refugees from all the eastern seaboard. We do believe that GNR news can be picked up from a larger area then we prevously expected. Currently they are settling around the Mall. And at last we are happy to report that the Aqua Pura is produced in such a quantity that we have a big surplus even though all the needs are meet. The free distribution is running smoothly."

It was Gared who first spoke. "Rivet City has increased their production of vegetables with 200% since the last meeting, but we still experiences that the food is still not enough to feed our own people and especially not the whole of Wasteland, our first priorities must be to increase the food production.

" I agree, Megatrons food supply is depended on caravans, and even though its much more safer on the caravan routes its too risky. We need to find other solutions so we not have a food crisis." Simms shouted in. He had his own problems. Moriarty, the man who owned the bar in Megaton had tried to influence the people there. But thanks to free distribution of basic medicine and water from the Brotherhood, and the elimination of the Atomic bomb threat made it possible for Simms to get enough support too implement Megaton in the co-operation of securing the Wasteland.

" The wasteland was a no-mans land for 200 years, and people still managed to survive, they will not mind survive some months while we create a stable government and create something that at least look like as a civilization." Elder Lyons counted.

"Barely, how many children have died because of food starvation, and to create stability and safety we need to make sure that they have a full belly and their limbs working.." It was Santiago that took the word. She had replaced Sonora Cruz as the leader of the vigilante group Regulators after Sonora suddenly started running into the Wasteland for never return again. After the fall on Enclave they had helped the brotherhood to clean up the remaining Enclave forces and created a bond between the two organisations. Raiders activity had decreased since the start of the cooperation.

" The solution is easy, we need to bread Brahims, if we can create an economy there i think it can solve the problem until we can fertilize the fields. The stool from them proves excellent fertilizers." Hamiln spoke for the first time." I agree, but it takes time and where do we use the ground. Its only inside the ruins that Brotherhood forces has full control." Lyons asked.

" We have a area from Megaton too Citadel that we could easily control and is flat with patches of green, with the extinction of Marmelurks, there are no threats there." Simms said.

" I can use some of my men too capture loose Brahmins, there are not tons of them, but if we capture them and buys some of the caravan i think we can have a sustainable population of them." Santiago was clear and loud.

" And how much will this costs?" Lyon asked.

" I can have 15 of my men working in three groups of five, and we of course need some materials and manpower to build the pen and buildings.".

" The material can we fix, we take from the ruins here and fly it over." Lyons proposed.

The Lone wanderer remembered that after Adams Air force base was destroyed and the Enclave crushed, The brotherhood suddently had an armada of over 20 Vertibirds to their disposal. That gave them air superority and created indestructible supply lines to the different cities around. Still they did not have the manpower to fight against the Slavers and Talon.

" Good, it is settled then. On too the next topic, the security forces. With our Knights, Rivet city security, and different loyal millita forces we have about 300 soldiers, but only 200 of them are properly trained. My calculations shows to maintain the safety perimeter we need atleast 100 more."

" Do we also have problems with equipment, guns?" asked Simms.

"Fortunatly no, The power armor is of course not allowed outside the Brotherhoods forces, but we raided an old national guard armory, we have thousands of combat uniforms and assault rifles, but we dont have the persons too fill them. My suggestions is that we use Reilly and her Rangers as drill instructors and use on of the abandoned Raiders camp to practice." Lyons had it all planned. "There is a raider camp about half a click away from the Washington Monument that is big enough to also accommodate a improvised shooting range. We cleaned it up some days ago. I will send some men to clean and build up the area."

"Sounds like a good idea, but how long will it take to train them properly?" asked Santiago.

" Yes, Reilly said that she could have 50 men in shape and qualified for battle in 4-5 months time. After that we could have regular flow of soldiers ready monthly. What i need from you are volunteers too be the first ones to go into the training."

"I can send some of the lazy deadbeats that does nothing in Rivet, and 5-6 of my guards to keep them in shape and help out with the training." Gared wrote something in his notes so that he would not forget this."

" Then lets waste no time discussing this, i can also send some men over." Simms added.

" Agreed, and now onto the most important agenda for today. The fortification of the Mall." Lyons took up a big map and layed in onto the table.

" As we discussed last time, The mall and the area around is where we should start with civilize the wasteland. The scouts have maped the area into every single detail and have come up with this suggestion for the fortifications." The map had a red line that implemented the fortification line, it went all around the mall and was cut into a bottleneck after two block to the south so you had a direct line to Rivet City.

" We can create a fortification by blowing some of the buildings up, and other place have a fence around, the same way we have on the Washington Memorial. The entrance is at the river so the caravans does not have to navigate trough the ruins."

" What about the subways," Gared asked.

" We blow them up also, creating a checkpoint at dupoint station for second entrance. When its done we will have a clear entrance gate that people will be slused into and the rest of the area being kept impossible to penetrate. The only thing we need is a person with understanding of the subway system here to lead the fortification process under there." Lyons turned his eyes against TLW.

"Okay, you have me convinced" The lone wanderer said for the first time. "Only one question"

"Yes?" Lyons asked.

"Can i blow something up?"


	3. The subway secured!

He slept little that night, for the first time he did not think about survival but about the future. The lone wanderer had lost his father a year ago, and his mother when he was born. He was refused entry back to the vault, who had gone dark after the Enclave defeat. He was alone. Cross and Fawkes had died throughout the fight against the enclave and the younger Lyons had vanished to fight against something called "Legion." A threat that was many years away but had to be taken seriously. But he was not sad, he enjoyed seeing people actually living and just not survive. He saw the tents around the mall and children playing together. Now he wanted to create a future for the many lives he once saved from the Enclave.

Things had changed. The three days that went since their last meeting at the Jefferson memorial went fast. Lyons sent a group too the abandoned raider camp the same day and they starting the not-so-fun work of removing all the dead bodies and was away the blood. The work was still going on there. TLW had used time to follow a engineer group around the weak area of the fortification fence. Those were the areas that had clear streets leading to the wasteland and places where unwanted company could easily access the mall without no one ever knowing. They estimated that it would take up too two months to fully secure the area.

Yesterday he visited the Northern area of Dupont Station to see where the gate would be. The engineer in charge of the area said that he wanted to make a double gate fortification with two guard towers on each side, making sure that there would be no form of a trojan horse infiltrating the area. At the side they would try to build to small buildings, a barrack and a guard leader office. Right now there were nothing there, but soon it would be the entrance to the mall. But now there were other things to worry about.

Around him through the entrance of one of the subway stations stood three other people. Two BOS and one person from Reilly Rangers that were this mission demolition expert. They all were veterans. The ranger had not been with Reilly at the failed mission at Statesman hotel, but he had come from a family that had passed their secrets of creating and understanding demolition techniques. He moved from an uncivilized tribe with his family, but he was the only one surviving the the two years trip. The two steels was on the other hand with him at the battle of Jefferson memorial, or at least he thought so. Difficult to know when they had their metal helmet on.

" Okay, everybody ready? Everything is equipped, we have three entrances that needs to be shut, so i dont wanna come back here before we are done."

"Check"

"Check"

"Check!"

"Okay then, lets go." They turned around and went down the escalator who had stopped running 200 years ago. The subway tunnels was not so dangerous as they used to be. Lots of traffic the last year between had almost killed of the Feral ghouls that were living down there. Still, there were many hundred kilometers of abandoned subway tracks, stretching far beyond the area they now called the mall. Therefore it could never be sure that they would exterminate all threats. So the next solution was too seal the whole area. The only line still planned to exist were the one leading to the Adams Air force base.

They went deep into the tunnels, away from the more popular stops and down to the ones that were never used. After 10 minutes of walking they stopped. If it havent been for the lights on the pip-boy it would be pitch black. One of the steels marked their route with chalk on designated places so that would not get lost. TLW watched the Pip-boy, they were at the designated place.

"This is the place guys. Do what you are supposed to do." The demolition expert started wiring C4 charges around the tunnel. The C4 was acquired from Adams, where there was tons of it. Enough to raze a city, but at these times no one could afford to loose another city.

"This will take some minutes, make sure nobody is attacking me." he said.

"Watch out!" one of the BOS said loud at the same time, right before he lifted his assault rifle. Two Ghouls came running against them. They were horrible creatures and TLW often have philosophical thoughts if they still were human somewhere inside those shells of monsters. These things had lived here since the bomb fell.

" Got them" TLW shouted and took up his assault rifle. He concentrated and entered what he called meditation mode. A state of mind that almost stopped the time and give him all the time in the world to aim. It was a gift he have had since birth. He could not explain it, so therefore never told anyone about it. It was like he could calculate the damage and see where the bullet would hit. It had saved him more than one time. They came running, but not for long. TLW pulled the trigger, 6 bullets, 3 for each of the enemies, both fell on the ground lifeless.

" Still got it" he said loud as the group lowered their aim and continued with the mission.

After 5 minutes the Demolition expert was done. "Okay, i have enough C4 to create a full rubble atleast 5 meters wide. Nobody will pass trough here even with missiles. We need to evacuate at least 20 meter before detonation. They took some steps behind. his group took cover between a abandoned subway car, but TLW just smiled while he held the detonator, standing in a direct line to the blast.

"Fire in the hole" he said with a low voice while he pushed the button.

The blast was in two stages. The first was a small detonation between the sidecharge before the main charge made a blasting noise that could be heard far away. Then all the ground above fell down and filled the hole. It took a minute before the dust settled and the sight to the massive wall could be seen.

"One down, two to go" TLW said.

It took four hours before they were done with the assignment. When they stepped up from the subway, the sun was on the highest point and people was busy with their things. But something were different. The refugees who before just watched their own business were now co-operating and working together in a coordinated move. Some of them moved food around and was giving out dirty bottles of water, while others carried rocks and rubble from the streets. And some one worked by removing the planks from the trenches and filling it again with earth. Thanks to the seed from Howard it was possible this once again would be a grassy area.

TLW walked to one of the soldiers that were guarding the area. "What is happening here, why are people starting to work together like this?" TLW asked.

"Elder Lyons orders. If we are going to offer protection, the refugees have to work. The most of them are starting to remove rubble from around the mall. Some with special skills are helping with the barricades and construction and some is scavenging with armed soldiers."

Smart move, with so many refugees working, the Mall would be rubblefree in no time. TLW dismissed his team for today and started walking towards the Lincoln Memorial. Maybe Hannibal was there, even though he spent more and more time in the mall, talking to former slaves, arranging for them too get treatment for their mental and physical wounds and sometimes he were lucky enough too tell some of them what happend to their family, even though it was often not good news too tell.

He was impressed by the statue of Lincoln. Caleb had attached the head to Lincolns body, but the rest of the memorial were still in bad shape, or at least it was. The holes on the wall was being fixed, the sandbags were removed and the stairs cleaned and dirt removed. It would never be as it was in its former glory, but were starting to be impressive according to this apocalyptic standard. He walked up steps and saw Caleb cleaning the information plate at the bottom of the statue.

"Hi Caleb, how is it going?"

Caleb turned around and looked at TLW.

" Long time, no see. Its still going here. The memorial starts to actually look like a memorial and we are still alive. Cant complain."

"Have you seen Hannibal?" TLW

" Yes, he is in the memorial room."

"Okay, need to talk to him, i see you later."

" Yeah, catch you later." Caleb answered and went back to cleaning.

TLW walked down the stairs again and went into the door at the bottom of the memorial.

Hannibal was sitting down and reading when he saw TLW. He stood up and shook his hands when he saw him.

"Done for today?" he asked.

"Yes, the are only one line out of The mall with the subway lines now. And there is already a control post established there. So we are more safe than we were yesterday.

"Good, good. Its hard to believe that we can create a civilized life again in the ruins of once a great city. I have read much about how it was before the bombs fell, and its hard to imagine a life with order and law."

"We will bring it back" TLW said.

" I hope you are right. I have seen alot, and there are no guarantee against evil, and Paradise Falls is stronger than they were before also."

" When we master the flight of the attack vertibird, we will bomb them out of the map." TLW was clear in his voice.

"And kill the hundred of slaves captured and held there. I hope not."

" Well atleast it is a problem for tomorrow. They are not strong too attack us and we are not strong enough to attack them. A form for peace."

" You are right, and as people start coming here it would be harder and harder for them to capture humans.

A silent boom was heard, the ground was shaking a little bit and a book fell from the ground.

" What was that?" TLW asked while he started to move to the exit.

" Dont you remember. They had to have a controlled explosion of the Maxwell Building to create a barrier. With this rate we are finished within two weeks. And then we can start with the future".


	4. Vernon Hotel

**Chapter 3: Vernon Hotel.**

"What a shithole" TLW stated while he looked at the entrance of Vernon Hotel. It was officially called The statesman Hotel, but a decision somewhere was taken that i would be named Vernon Hotel since the former name give too much assumptions to a time long gone. It was the biggest hotel within the Fortification and was now a integral part of the rebuilding process.

It had taken five weeks to create a fortification and building a secure entrance, the delay was caused by the lack of materials and some random attacks from far away raiders that probably did not know about the the Mall and its soldiers. It had killed one soldier who later were buried outside the Citadel, but at least 50 raiders had been killed and removed as a threat from the Wasteland forever. The material was also used for the ranch that were popping out on the other side of the river. It would not take long before a buisness of Brahim breeding could be done. Some ranchers had arrived from far away and given important expertise in how to breed and raise Brahims. But with the increased activity at the area came the negative factors also. The negative aspect was that it was on the other side of the river and therefore not within reach of the Citadel or the soldier. About 50 soldiers had too be sent to secure the ranch from raiders and other threats, creating a bigger need for trained soldiers at the mall. Securing the area around the mall had decreased the need for regular patrols but they needed some form of police force around the tents that were occupying the area around the mall. The solution came from Gared who let the 40 guards be regrouped into the refugee areas. Soon their uniforms was seen as the police of the city.

After the fortification was done, stage two was implemented. To get rid of the tents and create some real housing. Vernon Hotel was central too this plan since its 80+ rooms could give many people a permanent place to sleep.

"For now, yes. But soon it will be a place where people can live." The women next too him said. Her name was Jen and was the nearest The mall came to an architect. She had found some books about it when she was young and spent her her spare time too read and learn enough to understand the basic. She arrived to the Mall with her family and reported immediately to the Citadel about her set of skills. The last three months she had been cooperating with their engineers and scribes in how to build things and she was suddenly put in charge for a 100 man workforce with the mission to renovate a building that had stood vacant for over 200 years.

" Are you sure, last time i was here, there were holes everywhere, along with blood of dozen of mutants."

" Yes, i checked the ground floor inside and out, and its stands solid. It need some reinforcements here and there. But before the bombs fell, all the buildings in this area was built with purpose of standing if a small nuclear bomb would detonate, of course no building could stand a direct hit, but with luck, some survivors could find shelter here and there. So, its shitty and need a real check and reinforcement of the fundament. But otherwise it just needs some seriously cleaning and remodelling."

" You are the expert" TLW said. "So whats the plan."

" First of all, i need the workforce to remove bloodparts, skeletons, weapons and things that does not belong in a hotel." Jen said while looking at her clipboard, full of her notes and list over things that needed to be done.

" I think that the bodies of dozen of super mutants still are in the hall. And they were killed over a year ago. The are atleast 40 of them on the roof alone. It will take ages to remove them and the stand has probably attached itself to the walls."

" Therefore we have this." Jen said and pointed to four white barrels with Abrexo logo carved into the side.

" Extreme disinfectant, we need to spray it everywhere. It was found in the storage area of the Abrexo facility outside of the city. It has been tested and it removes blood stains like nothing. For the bodies i have required five steels that will use their laser rifles to dust the bodies."

TLW was impressed, for the first time he actually believed that the hotel could be renovated, and if they could renovate this building, they could also build things from the scratch again.

"Did you manage to start producing sement again?" TLW asked

"Yes, with the help of brotherhood and some highly improvised mixer we are actually producing a large enough quantity for renovating this place." Jen answered.

"Then, lets start." TLW smiled.

It took the Steels the better part of the day to check every corner of the hotel. Many of the bodies had decomposed and it large amounts of Laser ammo was used to to change it too dust. The reason living bodies often had a big chance of being cremated when hit by a laser beam was that a hit created a chain reaction in the bloodwessels that boiled the blood too several thousands degree and practically cremated them from the inside, a dead body did not have a running bloodstream. Often you could shoot a leg and only the leg would burn. But it was obstacle, not a problem. At first sight of night they came out and declared themselves done. Jen who had a tent raised right outside then ordered a workforce of 30 refugees to go inside. With them they had former fuel tanks that was modified to spray the disinfectant. TLW on the other hand had volunteered to work with the people that were reinforcing the ground of the hotel. He was surprised to see the large amounts of material needed to secure the building, but the workers was professional. They had gone through a two days course with Caleb on simple techniques on how to use cement and they have learned. Cracks on the fundament was quickly repaired and soon it starts too look professional out and not at least safe.

At midnight the workers were done with the first run. And when TLW inspected the place with Jen he was impressed. Gone were the blood stains and the dirt and replaced with shinning floors and clean windows. Still it did not look finished. It was like Jen had read his thoughts.

" Its only first rounds. Tomorrow they will go another round and then we will start with repairs on the floor and the walls. We will need some wood, that we will get from scavenge the ruins outside of the perimeter. In the long run i hope we can a trade route down too the areas where trees grow."

The next day started as the last one ended, The work force went another round with the disinfectant and then started with removing glass shards from broken windows and broken doors and rubble. Then another round of disinfectant of the areas. The whole operation took three more days.

In the meantime TLW went back to the Mall. Things had changed. The streets were clear of rubble and the water on the pond replaced with fresh water. It had to be drained manually with buckets and filled again with buckets, but was worth it. The water basin was now full of clear water. The wall around the Washington Monument was removed, but the holes were still there. It was not the easiest thing too repair holes on a monument 20 meter above the ground with this technology they had. The tents around the Mall were still there, but now was it arranged like being a village. Some people had also gotten approval from the citadel to operate as street vendors and they sold food they often caught themself outside of the perimeter. TLW had been called into the Museum of Technology. Outside stood Abraham Washington, two guards from Rivet City that now also patrolled the Fortification zone and three civilians. The Rivet city guards stood a little bit behind and just watched the scene, they looked happy when TLW came.

"What is the problem here?" TLW asked.

" Oh, i am so glad you are here." Washington said.

" These people here tried to steal from the museum, a traitorous act against history."

" We did not steal, all we wanted was to use some the things instead of letting them rot here." one of the civilians protested.

"You tried to take the wheels of the first lunar module ever landed on the moon!"

"Okay we are sorry for that, we just wanted to make a cart so we could more easily transport goods through the mall."

"Traitors!"

"Okay, Abraham, they did apologize." TLW tried to calm the situation.

"But they did not return it!"

" Is that true?" TLW asked one of the scavengers.

" Yes, we need it to transport bricks from the cement mixer too the Vernon Hotel."

" Abraham, the work is done within a week, long before you are done with the museum, can they borrow it until then?" TLW asked.

" I suppose" Abraham muttered..

When he did return back to Vernon Hotel the next day, the area was changed. Outside there a workplace were workers was measuring and cutting up trees, storing bricks and there was also a primitive cement mixer there. He found Jen inside the building watching the workers repairing a hole on the third floor.

" How is it going?" he asked.

"Better than good. We have fixed the problems with the circuits so every room has adequate light, and too all suprise the pipes still worked in almost every of the rooms. I measured the radioactivity off the water and its next to zero, it must be connected to the basin. The only big thing left before decorating is to remove the mast on the second floor. The one that destroyed the wall. The only problem is the thing is really big, its almost impossible to remove it."

" I can help you with that, i worked a guy that specialise in things like this."

Two hours later TLW looked at the mast from ground floor with the same demolition expert that he worked with to seal the subways.

"So what do you think?" he asked.

" A little charge in the middle will break it in two, and gravity will fix the rest. The only backfire is that when the parts split it can destroy the fasade of the hotel."

"It will only create some more days of work. do it" TLW said.

Before dawn, everything was set up. The demolition charge was set up and the hotel was evacuated as a security measure. This time Jen was allowed to be the one pressing the detonator. She was standing at the subway entrance too use it for cover. She pushed the button and a silent blast was heard. The explosion and the shockwave broke the mast into two. Both fell down some seconds later into the street. There were some damage to the wall, but nothing to serious. Better then expected. As soon as the dust settled the workers started clearing the rubble. Within the day it was gone and three days later the wall was repaired.

"Im am impressed, it seems like it never was damaged" TLW said as he inspected the new hotel. Jen was proud to show him around the new hotel. The whole area was clean and one year ago this would be extreme luxury. They had thrown out most of the beds and the doors, but the building itself was repaired as much as it could have been repaired. How would they get the new beds from? For the time being the military beds from the armory would suffice, but hopefully the skin from some animals would provide a good excuse for a mattress, but they would have to cross that bridge when they came there. The elevator was also working and they took the trip to the roof. The sight was beautiful. Some had actually have crossed enemy territory in the north and brought with them flowers from the oasis and used it to decorate the place. When the sun hit the golden reflections of the floor it was like there never was a apocalypse. It was truly the dawn of a new era.

"So, what do you think?" Jen asked while drinking a Nuka-Cola. Somehow there was enough of it to go around to drink it when celebrating. "

"As said, you did a good job here, soon there will be people here that could actually call this a home."

"I mean about the mall. We had to use lots of resources to renovate this place, and still there are many more buildings left. Do you think we can rebuild this place to its former glory?" Jen finished her Nuka-Cola.

TLW had no touched his yet. "I think we can, and i think we will. As long as we never repeats the error of our forefathers, we can do everything."

He congratuled Jen and looked at the watch on the PIP-boy. It was time for the weekly meeting with Lyons.


	5. The followers of the law

**Chapter 4: Followers of the Law**

"So this is called Brandy?" he asked Lyons as he sipped the brown liquid from a glass.

"Yes, not so many bottles left of it, but once in a while a scavenger sells it to a trader that understands it value and sells it to me. But enough of the brown delight, how does Vernon Hotel stands?"

"Suprisingly well. I was to Tennpenny Tower a year ago, and if you take away the carpets and gold, this is the same if not better standard."

"Good, good, to have a place like that too show its possible to rebuild is important. But unfortunatly it demanded lots of resources.

"You mean the windows, wood, furniture, wires and so on.?" TLW asked.

"Yes, we scavenged at least 6 buildings to get all the materials, we can not improve much more. A whole window itself is a rare sight, and we need hundreds of them shall we fix up everything inside the Perimeter."

"Yes, is this the main issue of this weeks meeting?"

"No, not at all. I hope to solve this problem soon by having the scribes at Arlington understand the secrets to produce windows and learn the machines. For the other things i hear things from my scouts that opening trade routes will solve many of the other problems. No, the problem we need to solve is more complex one. We need to create a law that applies to everyone that is under our protection." Lyons poured another drink.

" I cant see if thats a big problem. We have little crime inside the fortification of the mall."

" No, the bigger things like rape, murder does not need to be specified. If caught they are being expelled and we drop them off near slave routes. But what about the smaller crimes. Like stealing, fighting and so on. What is legal and what is not, and what should the punishment be. We need to create a standard that applies for all of the people that wants to live in The Mall."

" So what do you need from me" TLW asked.

" First of all. I will gather representative from all the settlements to a seminar so we can agree upon a common law in the area, but i need you to find a suitable locations for a prison.

" What about a courtroom? This is heavy stuff, if we are going to have rules, we also need to have rights."

" You are talking about the bill of rights that the former nation of these lands had?" Lyons asked.

" Yes, i was schooled inside a vault, and i read about how a country should be founded. History showed that if people is not giving some essential rights, a nation could not survive."

" Yes, i will take that into consideration too, but you have to remember that the wasteland is not over its survival fase, not yet."

" I will start look for both areas, just to be sure. By the way, have the new soldiers from Reilly be mobilized?"

"Yes, we have 50 new soldiers that are battletrained. Reilly promised 100 new within two months. With this we can now also starts perimeter patrols outside the fortification. Within half a year we have enough to actually start challenge the Slavers in the area."

TLW walked through the bridge back the The mall. Three steels greeted him at the way. Even though he did not like it, he admitted that people still needed to give before they could claim. With the Exception for food and water, the Mall was still depending on scavenging, they were not producing anything. He bought a water bottle from one of the Vendors at the Mall and took a sip while he thought about the assignment. The first thing that came to mind was Rivet City. Now that the mall was starting to be habitable they could move the residents, but then he remembered that Rivet City was the only place that produced fresh vegetables and that had a somehow reasonable laboratory that provided with the research needed for agriculture growth.

So what other place was there. The solution was that there no other place within the Mall. The Capitol building was too big and still off limits for civilians. After cleaning up the place, it was decided that in the future it would serve as the center of a new country, until then it was sealed off.

When he passed the Museum of Natural history he saw Donovan, one of the former soldiers of Reilly Rangers that now was a officer of the non Steels forces.

"Hey, i was just looking for you" Donovan said.

" Whats happening Donovan.?"

" There are some usual guests at the entrance, the guards are not sure what to do with them so i hope you could help since you are the hero of the Capitol Wasteland."

TLW hated that nickname. Tree-dog up at the radio station had almost praised him as a savior of the wasteland. The truth was that he did just what he believed was right, not unlike any of the Brotherhood of Steel or the Regulators, or anyone else that did not like killing, raping or stealing. But as Lyons had once told him, the world needed heroes now. No matter how real or unreal they were.

" Lead the way." TLW answered. He took a look at the entrance of the museum where one of the ghouls was guarding the entrance. They had made a agreement with Lyons that they will stay out of each other business and the ghoul would have suverenity over the Underworld. But with one clause. The humans could send expeditions to the lower areas to gather things that had a historical significance. Abraham Washington had already went down three times into the lower levels with some men and come back with books, statues and things that could share a light of the history of this land.

They arrived at Dupont Station where the gate was. It was a big fortification with two guard towers, two electric gates and floodlights found at an abandoned arena some traders had arrived with. There were about fifteen soldiers. Three steels and the rest had the former green military uniforms. They saluted when they saw Donovan.

" Whats the problem soldier?" Donovan asked.

" The new arrivals, they do not look like refugees or scavengers, they call themselves Followers of the apocalypse." The soldiers answered.

" Are they armed or any threat to The mall?" Donovan asked

" No sir. Of the eight people in the caravan, only three are armed, and they have let their arms down."

Donovan turned around to TLW.

"What do you think?"

"Let them in."

They were eight of them. 3 female and 4 male. They brought with them four brahims that were fully loaded with what looked like advanced equipment. A girl with ponytail and with the sides shaved stepped forward.

" I am Annabelle of The followers, i would like to talk with one of your leaders." she asked.

" You can talk to me." TLW said.

" And who are you?" she asked.

"The call me many names, but The Lone Wanderer can do."

"Is that really you. The guy that beat the Enclave, brought water and hope to the Wasteland. The man that made sure that grass for the first time in 200 years are sprouting?"

" And i once eat 6 iguana-on-a-stick under less and than a half-hour."

Silence...

"That was a joke." he clarified.

"Oh, of course, forgive me. Is there a place were can talk privately.

"Donovan, can i use the command tent?" The tent was right next to the gate.

" Go ahead, i will stay out here in the meanwhile."

He lead her into the tent.

" So what can i do for you? Or rather, why are you here? You dont look like the people that arrives just for safety."

" I am follower of the apocalypse, have you heard about us?" she asked.

" I can't say that i have."

" We are an organization that were founded on the other side of this land many years ago with a purpose of educating humanity about the horrors of the Great War, and never to repeat those atrocities again. Three years ago we heard about signs of civilization on the other side of the coast. Our leaders decided to ask for volunteers that could made the journey through to teach them. I volunteered. For three years i have wandered with my equipment and. I hoped that there were some sort of city or village that would accept my help, but this, this is so much more. I come here with wisdom in medicin, history and knowledge i know would improve the life of the people here. I ask for you too accept my help."

"I have to admit, this sound to good to be true. The other side of the land? Do you mean California?"

"Yes, how did you know?"

"Lived in a vault where they had maps and books."

"Oh, then there is much i have too tell you. Have you heard about Tandi and something called NCR?...

Donovan checked his clock. Three hours they had been in there. Donovan had to check twice that they were still talking, and everytime it was confirmed by TLW who listened almost in trance too the things that this Follower said.

After a long time he finally came out of the tent.

"Let them in, i believe that these people are here to help."

"As you say" Donovan confirmed and gave a nod to the soldier watching the inner gate. He opened it up so the rest of the followers could come in.

"This way too the mall" he said while they started to follow him.

"So this is the former Washington, the capital of the whole United States of America?" she asked while she admired The Washington Monument in the distance.

"So they said, we sacrificed lots of people to make this a city again. But now at least were paying the price in sweat and not blood."

" So is this a country of Brotherhood of Steel, are they in charge?"

That was good question that he actually had discussed with Elder Lyons many times.

"No, They were the one that made this possible, and they were the one that provided the safety when we needed it the most, but this a nation of the people that lives here. You have to remember that this chapter of the Brotherhood is only a part of the organisation in the name. Lyons does not take order from Maxston or any other place. Just like the NCR you are talking about." TLW finished.

"NCR is a country that falls for the same traps that their predecessors did, to not say that they does not follow orders from people with their own interests will be wrong. But your city, its just born and i hope i can prevent you of doing the same mistakes as the NCR." Annabelle finished her sentence.

"And what kind of mistakes have they done?" TLW asked, not sure if he wanted to know the answer too these kind of questions.

"Corruption, political inbreeding, and the inability too see their own limitations." Annabelle answered with. She continued. "Since Tandi died the new Presidents have been nothing else than colonist conquerers. Last time i heard something there was a big battle between NCR and the Legion."

He remembered them. Sentinel Lyons and some of her men had been sent west too check out the threat.

"Anyway, where do you want to set up base?" TLW asked.

"Are you sure that its okay that we are here, you Elder would not disapprove?" Annabelle asked.

"No, i have helped him destroy the Enclave, made the Super Mutants threat extinct and killed so many raiders camp that he wont doubt my decisions."

"Then i hope too set up somewhere central to the Mall, we are hoping to be both a hospital and a education center."

"I think i then have the perfect place for you."

"Are you asking me to leave?" Abraham Washington asked?

"Not at all, just if they could use the east wing with entrance to the Mall."

" But why, i used months to finally collect all the important historical things, and to create a museum here."

" Listen, i personally will make sure that this building will be renovated and that you will have a full worth museum if you help me, and this people can also help you. They have knowledge far beyond everyone here." TLW took his hand on Washingtons shoulder.

Annabelle who stood behind TLW interrupted the conversation.

" Nice collection Mr Washington, but did you know that the Decleration of Independence was not sent by airplane, since it was over 100 before the invention of the airplane, and that it was signed the 4th of July and not the 1st as you have written."

"How..how..did you know that?" Washington asked.

"Because of the encyclopedia of American history i have with me, written i 1994, with more historical accuracy than anything you have. I can let you borrow it if you like."

Washington was mute.

"Then welcome my dear" he said giving Annabelle an awkward hug.

At that time TLW remembered that he had forgot to scout for a suitable place for a prison.

It did not take long before The followers made an impression on the mall. With superior knowledge in medicine than almost any of the doctors in the Wasteland, Annabelle used her time too teach many of them to improve their skills. She also had brought with her a Mister Gutsy with advanced surgery parameters installed. For the first time The Mall actually had surgical capacity. Her co-followers were also useful. One of them set up a class room in of the rooms and started to teach the children. The auditory were also used sometimes for crash-courses in things that needed to be learned quickly. The two others used their time between being doctors or helping the scribes in Arlington. But there was still one problem. They were starting to run out of medicine.


	6. Tennpenny Tower

**Chapter 5: The Tennpenny Tower!**

"The situation is dire" Lyons confessed.

He was sitting around a table at The museum of Technology. With him was Jen, the head architect, Annabelle from the Followers, and the Lone Wanderer.

" Yes indeed, i have enough stimpaks and med-x for two-three months and after that we are empty and can do nothing." Annabelle proved a point. She had drastically increased the living standards around the mall. Where infections previous was almost a death sentence it was now highly treatable. And Jen had also really proved herself to the task. Thanks to access to buildings material the renovation went faster and faster. About 35% of the population had a roof that was not a tent too sleep under. With the renovation of the next too buildings this would increase to over half of the population. Some of the more "ambitious" inhabitants had come over and proposed to build a tavern or some sort a hotel since the frequency of traders also increased. Jen had rebuffed this after discussion with Lyons.

" And the materials are starting to run out also. Even though Point Lookout provides us with some trees now and then, and we can use the rubble to create sement, are things like glass and other materials hard to find. And we have come to a halt with laying more pipelines to the new apartments." Jen had some notes she was looking at.

"Jefferson Memorial and the reactor under the Citadel provides more than enough power, but we dont have the material to connect new buildings to the power grid. Of course i can try to scavenge from the gigantic mast but i doubt i can find any volunteers that would climb up there."

Lyons stood up and put his arms at the table.

" I have sent my scouts all around the the region looking for some places that we can start producing again. While there are no chance that we can again produce advanced things, I believe that things like stimpaks and med-x are a possibility, and i also believe that it should have first priority. And thats were you come into the picture."

Lyons looked at TLW.

"You have been to the RoboCo Facility, havent you?" Lyons asked.

Yes, he had been there, about 2 years ago, not long after he escaped from the vault. It was full of defect robots that tried to kill him. He was there only because that lunatic in Megaton tried to write about the dangers of wasteland, but did not want to do the research himself. So for lots of caps he actually went to do some crazy shit. From being radioactive, to blowing himself up just so the effect of stimpak could be measured. The book was eventually published, how he did not know, and was soon in circulation all over the area. It did in all fairness save some lives. He then remembered that he still had a house in Megaton. He had not been there for at least a year now. Simms promised too watch the house for him, but still. He had to visit Megaton again soon. Maybe on his way back from the RoboCo facility.

" There are many problems. Our forces would be spread thin if we were to protect the road from here to the factory. And of course we need to protect the factory itself. Not to mention all the workers that need to be traveling between the points." TLW said.

"Yes, all valid points, when it comes to the transportation i guess we can use one of the Vertibirds for transport, atleast for the beginning. The second thing is that Tennpenny Tower is in the middle of the road. I believe that they have been neutral too both the Mall and the slavers in the north." Lyons had a point. If Tennpenny Tower could be a fortress where soldiers could be stationed it would be the same as taking control of the area all the way up to Megaton.

" I havent been to Tennpenny Tower in a while to be honest, last time i was there i had to get rid of some ghouls trying to settle down there. Had a really bad vibe about those people. Anyhow, Tennpenny have at least 15 fully armed soldiers there."

" You are the hero of the Capitol Wasteland, you are the only one that convince them too let use the tower. I need you too get there, make a deal and then make sure that the RoboCo facility is up and running.

"Do you want me to take out Paradise Falls at the same time?" TLW asked sarcastically.

" Maybe on your way back."

The next started with a quick shower in his room at the Citadel before going out too the landing pad where the Vertibird stood ready for take-off. TLW was going alone to the Towers, but was to contact with the Citadel through the Pip-boy so he could regroup with an engineer-group lead by Annabelle at the facility as soon as he was done.

He took place at the back seat of the Vertibird who closed the back hatch right away afterwards. It was only him, the pilot and the co-pilot inside the gigantic metal tube.

"Riding to the Tennpenny tower today?" the pilot asked.

"Thats right" he confirmed.

The co-pilot had already found the place on the map and showed to the Pilot that confirmed the position with a nod.

" I am going too let you out about 1 meter from the ground so i dont have to use the landing gear, i will circle around once to make sure you got off safely before leaving. You got everything you need?" the pilot asked. As with all advanced technology, only Steels could be pilots on the Vertibirds. The brotherhood had originally 20 of them to their disposal but one had malfunction beyond repair and the other one had been shot down by a lucky missile shoot from slavers. The pilot and the co-pilot had died at impact, but not before starting the self-destruct sequence, making sure that the Slavers would not take advantage of it later.

TLW checked his bag. His assault Rifle with 5 clips, to frag grenades and one pulse grenade, to portion of food, one stimpak and two bottles of Aqua Pura.

"Got it" he shouted to the pilot too go over the sound of the rotors starting.

"Then we have lift-off."

The vertibird took off and went into west.

They dropped him off 3 clicks from the Tower, so he had to walk for the better part of the half-hour to get there. About 5 minutes into the trip he stopped, something was wrong. It was his instinct. He took up his assault rifle and scouted the area. He could not see them, but there was something there. There area was hilly and lots of rocks hindered his vision. There were some spots of grass here and there that also created an illusion of something breaking up the landscape. Then he saw them. Raiders. Five of them. They had been driven away from the The Mall and the southern area around Megatron, that has been dubbed the "The breadbasket." But so far west it was not impossible too see them operate. He watched them, they had not seen him, but were on their way east. They could not be so stupid as attack the Mall, but if they were lucky they could avoid the patrols and attack one of the ranches, kill the people and slaughter the Brahims.

The one that walked infront had to be the leader, the way he walked and talked showed that. TLW took a deep breath, focused and went into his meditating mode. The leaders head flashed green. TLW pushed the trigger with a slowly move three times.

He only needed one bullet.

The head to the Raiders head exploded like a watermelon. For one second the rest of the group were in shock, then they reacted, drawing up their pistols and hunting rifles. TLW had made a mistake. By shooting three bullets he had shown his location and then gave away his position.

"Over there, the motherfucker is hiding between the rocks there!" one of the raiders shouted.

They were not professional soldiers, They did not take cover and coordinate their attacks but just shoot against the enemy, that were hiding behind a rock over 100 meters away. The only threat was the one with the hunting rifle. He could actually manage to hit TLW on purpose. The ones with handguns could only hope that a lucky shoot would do that, but the bullet hit the grounds at least 20 meters in front of TLW.

He took another look and aimed his rile against the man with the hunting rifle. The enemy did not take cover, but stood in the open, trying to get a good shoot, bad mistake. Three more bullets and the raiders stomach exploded. He fell to the ground dead. There were now three of them left, and one tried to flank him. Unfortunately she had not the help of heir fellow raiders to support her with cover fire. TLW finished her with a burst of rounds in the torso. The two left clearly starting to get afraid. One of them had finally came to his senses and tried to hid between another, too bad he had turned his back while running the 15 meters to cover. Now TLW had his whole back as a target for at least 3 seconds, and he needed only 1.

The last one gave up. Crying. She put the gun down on the ground and feel to her knees sobing. "Dont kill me, please dont kill me" she cried.

TLW stood up from his cover behind the rocks and went with silent steps to the surrendering girl, about 5 meters away from her, he noticed a twitch from her left arm.

"What were you doing here? You scums has been pushed back north!" he shouted.

"Please, this is the only life i know" she cried.

"The life of killing." she then said with the calmest voice he had ever heard, like switching of the emotion with a press of the button.

Her arm quickly went to the side to pick up a knife, and she could have succeed against a soldier who could not read the body language, bot not against the Hero of the wasteland who would notice when muscles gets ready to act. He fired at least five bullets into her head and chest. She fell to the ground with the knife in her hand.

TLW took a deep breath.

"Just another days work." he said to himself.

He arrived at the doors to Tennpenny Towers 12 minutes later. Like always it was locked and he had to call trough the intercom.

"Who is there?" a voice asked through the speaker.

"Gustavo, its me,"

A moment of silence, before a buzz was heard and the gate went to the side.

Gustavo was the head of security at the tower, and was somewhat grateful for the clean-up TLW did with the Ghoul Problem.

"Why are you here?" Gustavo asked, revealing himself from the improvised barracks on the left side of the gate. There were four other guards around the entrance, but they seem to not giving a shit about him.

" I need to speak to Tennpenny."

"You know that he is is starting to get paranoid."

"Really? why?"

" First of all, he does not like that the Mall is looking more and more as an independent city-state, he believes that is only a matter of time before someone representing them will come here and try to claim the tower. But with you here i am wondering if the old geezer actually told the truth." Gustavo wet his lips with his tongue.

"Just let me see him."

"Sure, give me your weapons, i will hand it back when you leave."

"Trust is not common these days."

"No, not for the one that defy wishes. Strange that he did not send hit-squads after you."

" Oh, he did, lots of times. Wonder how many caps he used on the Talon merc." TLW remembered all the times he was stopped in the middle of the wasteland by three rookies that actually tried to taunt him before trying to go for the kill. They were all rookies and he had few problems getting rid of them.

The inside of the tower was exactly as he remembered it. The people living in their own little world, and did not care about the outside. He saw Susan Lancaster and Tiffany Cheng.

"I heard that the Mall soon will get a boutique shop. We need to go there soon!"

" Yes, Susan, i was told that a gourmet cousine will also be opened there soon. I cant wait."

They were in for a bit of a suprise he thought while he went into the elevator.

_Beep!_

The doors went open and the first thing waiting for him stood in the doorway of the elevator. The white suit, the black glasses and hat. It was Burke, not his biggest fan in the wasteland.

"You are really quite a man" Burke said.

"Thanks, i am flattered." TLW said and trying to get pass Burke. He stopped when Burke put a hand on his shoulder.

" No really, i mean it. I actually called off the hit on you because Talon sent babies against you and demanded more and more caps each time they failed. It was really frustrating, but then something happened."

"Oh, what was that?"

"The wasteland two biggest faction merged. The Talon merc and the slavers are now lead by the same person, and do you know what they have in common?"

"They both believe in a low-carb diet?"

"They both hate you. They know that you made The Mall possible, they know that you made they day harder and they all want you dead." Burkes face was not affected by emotions.

"They have to stand in line then." TLW took away Burkes hand and went for the doors that lead out too the balcony.

"But you dont know their leader. He is a genius of man, but not a forgiving one. He will give that challenge you will not rise too meet, and i will be there to watch." Burke shouted as TLW continued to walk out to the balcony.

As the door closed behind him he could not notice the words of Burke. Was there a new leader for the slavers. Well, he would find out soon enough. Now he had to talk to Tennpenny. As usual he was sitting in a chair watching the panorama view that he had to his disposal. The old man that somehow managed to emigrate from The Great Britain to the US many years ago, but long after the bomb fell.

" Oh, its you young man. Havent seen you in a while."

"Good Morning Allistar, i thought i came for a visit. Can i sit down?"

"Of course young man, sit down and tell me why you come."

" I shall be honest. You have seen whats happening at the Mall?" TLW sat down on the comfortable chair.

"Oh, yes. Its starting to be a really nice place, some of the residents are talking about going for a visit there. Its that why you are here, to promote the Mall?

"Not at all, i want you to take part of the the things that are happening in the capital wasteland. We are doing things that have not been seen for 200 years. We want to civilize and make this land safe for everyone. Just like our forefathers did a long long time ago."

"And what do you need from me?" Allistar asked.

" I need you too let officials from the Mall operate some millitary operations from this area."

" I see, you want me to give this tower up to become a millitary fortress?"

"No, not a fortress, a suburb. We dont want you or any of your residents to move, we just need the courtyard, some rooms and the barracks to operate from. Believe me, it will benefit you as well. Think of all the trade that will pass trough here. You would be an social elite for so many more people than you are now."

"You are talking things i like to hear about. But do you know why i moved from England?" Allistar looked at TLW with his wrinkled face.

"No?"

" No matter what you believe, Europe was hit hard by the bombs, but unlike you and America, the national pride laid in our blood and our ancestors blood hundreds of generations before the bomb fell. Only 20 years after 40 bombs destroyed all of our cities we started rebuilding. 20 years after i was born the island has hundreds of small petty kingdoms, some of them had maybe a population of 200 people living in huts made of dirt and wood. The kingdom i was born into, was something like that. Situated on the west coastline we had some minor boat industry. But our damn pride made sure that history repeated itself. My father and mother died in a war with another small kingdom. The only battle had maybe totally 300 people fighting against eachother with sword and some rusty rifles. When the battle was done and we won we burned their villages, salted their earth and destroyed everything they tried to rebuild. I realised that we would never change. So i took a ship and sailed around Ireland and headed straight west. When i arrived the boat was so damaged i had to swim the last distance to the shore. Not long after i found this Tower in almost perfect shape. I sweat for years to make this a safe place. So my question is, why do you think more civilization will solve anything. What makes you believe that the slavers and the Mall would not just fight each other too oblivion again+"

"Because we dont rebuild for the sake of pride, we rebuild for the sake of the protection of everyone that just wanna live their life in peace. Yes, war is the darkness of the human hearts, but to protect and help is the light. And i can promise you that you would help thousands if you just open this place up for us."

"No, i dont think so."

"We also give you 10% of the profits of sales made within your territory."

"Deal."


	7. War, war never changes

**Chapter 6: The man in the machine.**

He did not meet Mr Burke on his way down the tower, which actually bothered him because he remembered the words Burke said. Then his thoughts went back to the mission. He had made a deal with Tennpenny, making sure that The mall could have a battalion of soldiers stationed there. This would definitely make sure that the south-western trade routes would be secured in the nearest future, but also that part two of the RoboCo plan could be implemented.

"So how did it go?" Gustavo asked while giving him back his weapons.

" Prepare to get a bunk mate" TLW answered while taking up his Pip-boy. He found the designated frequency to the Brotherhood of Steel.

" We have made a deal with Tennpenny, i am ready to go too stage two.

" Affirmative, the Vertibird squadron will move ASAP, do you need pick-up?"

" No, can walk, its a easy two hours walk."

"Roger that, see you there." The channel went silent.

He liked to walk, he could actually think about things when the only thing on his visual frontier was the red wasteland of the city formerly known as Washington. The one that bothered him now was the word of Burke of the mysterious man. The man leading the slavers. He had seen some reports from the scouts not many days ago. They told about better equipped and more aggressive slavers. And even though The Brotherhood Vertibirds had raids against the trade routes, the business increased. That meant that someone or something were buying slaves in big quantum. Could Tennpenny be right, that no matter what, all could all be destroyed when the human urge of war come. His train of thought was interrupted by a sound of something penetrating the sound wall. It was the Vertibird squadron on their way to the facility. It passed over him and disappeared into the horizon.

It took him 2 hours before he reached the facility. At that time the others had been busy. A guard posts and some tents were already placed up, and there was a two meter high barbwire fence around the facility. The soldiers saw at once who it was that were coming and saluted even though TLW did not have any military grade. Lyons and the rest of the brotherhood was actually quite sceptical of letting the ordinary army organize themselves the same was as they did. The fact that there were an outcast organization somewhere out in the wild proved that. So there was some leaders, and some ordinary soldiers.

"How is things going?" he asked the soldier that was standing guard. He was dressed in the green military armor and had a 30 mm machine gun in his hands. A bad weapon under these circumstances where he had clear vision of enemy moments much longer than the effective radius of the machine gun.

" Good sir, Annabelle are in there with some people that is expert in these kind of things. Me and my soldiers have fortified the area. I think we have control."

" And who is in charge."

" I am!" a voice in the background said. He recognised the voice, last time he heard it, he was trying to hunt down an android that who had somehow became self-aware. After a long search he decided to keep the identity of the android secret, not wanting to become God and decide who was living and not.

" Harkness.." TLW said loudly.

"Nice to see you again. I heard that our mission here had you as a central part of it." The android was looking like a pretty and fit human. You had to cut through the syntetic skin before you would realise that he had kilometeres of wires inside of him."

"Likewise, so what have you been told about this assignment and why were you picked up for this?" He realised that the question could be a little bit direct but the android probably did not pick up the doubt in TLW voice.

" When it comes to our mission parameters, i was told to defend this place and make sure that the people downstairs does not lack anything. After the reorganization of the security forces at the The Mall i was promoted, and this time it was my turn to do my job."

"Fair enough, i need to see Annabelle."

"Then i will escort you too them."

The first thing that meet them we they went in were the destroyed robots from last time he was there. The room had five protectrons on display in various positions. There was also a man looking at the robots, trying to understand what was happening and how all this worked? He did not notice TLW and Harkness. They then went to the cafeteria are where Annabelle was looking trough a dataterminal, taking notes as she worked.

"Oh, there you are, we started without you" she said with curiosity in her voice.

"Yeah i noticed" with a smile.

"I will now go back to my duties" Harkness said and left them.

"Strange guy that man." Annabelle pointed out after Harkness had left.

"You have no idea. So what is happening here. Any luck?"

"Its have just been one hour since we arrived, but i have a good feeling about this. The manufacturing procedures are all stored in the computers, and with some modifications we can alter the settings too make the factory produce what we want."

"So put penicillin in there and keep it running."

" Well now, its not that easy. First of all, to change the production from robots to alcohol is nothing that is changed by sitting down on a computer. We need to make some serious change in the machinery, first i need to find out what needs to be changed, get the material and then physically change the manufacture process. Then we need the basic ingredients to start creating what we want, in this case Penicilin."

"And that is not done within the hour?" TLW asked?

"Hope you did not have any plans the next couple of days." Annabelle answered.

Three days came and went with they working almost 24 hours. For the first time in a very long time TLW feel asleep before he even managed to undress. It was hard work where they had to change thousands of details. The worst part was to install the bottle dispenser. Not only did they need to remove all of left side of the machine, they also needed over 200 empty bottles. They took a quick trip back to the mall where they starting to collect the bottles. There were no shortage of those. The super-duper mart just across the river literally drowned in empty bottles. The problem was that they needed bottle with the same shape. First they wanted to go with Nuka-Cola, but Annabelle discovered soon that the glass bottle could not be trusted to hold and not break at the manufacturing process. So they went with the plastic bottles that once were standard milk bottles that were delivered to millions of americans hom before the shortage era started. Then it was back to the machines. The funny part was that it felt like a puzzle piece, a piece removed was being used to something else on the machinery. Finally Annabelle said the magic word,

"It's done."

"Thank god, i never want to se a wire again in my life." TLW said.

" Now we only need the ingredients, come with me to the cafeteria again."

At the cafeteria the situation had changed. It was now a lab, with some unknown people going around and doing stuff TLW never would understand.

"What's happening here?" he asked.

"The factory is not a drug lab, its only a place that helps the process of manufacturing medicine. Here we create the the basic ingredients in large quantum and the machine makes the finalised products."

"Like stimpaks and rad-away?"

"Yeah, eventually i believe that we can expand our operation when the time comes. Thanks to the news seeds rising there are all kind of plants growing. Its just a matter a time before a plant that we can produce more efficient medicine with."

"How can you make sure that it will not produce wrong formula?"

"We have our tests." Annabelle said. "Now lets making history."

They went down again to the factory floor. The assistant followed them downstairs and took with them lots of liquid.

They put down the liquid into different containers inside the factory machine. When they were done, Annabelle started the machine.

It took 15 minutes before something happened. First i was a dunk, then the conveyor belt started up. Some more minutes went by, then it came. A clear liquid kept inside a washed used Aqua Pura bottle. Annabelle took up the first bottle.

" Abraham wanted me to get this one for him so he cold place it inside the museum."

"Why?"

"Because this is the first thing that has been produced for over 200 years in the capital wasteland."

The dawn was breaking over the mall. TLW woke up after sleeping soundly. He had came into some god habits. Waking up at eight, eating breakfast from the ever growing food supply at 8,30 and he did the work he wanted to until he was tired, and now, three months after The capitol Wasteland started producing again, think looked better than ever. He dressed up in the casual work clothes. He had not gone with a armour for a long time and he only had a 9 mm handgun as protection. The mall was starting too look like a city before the bombs fell. The refugee tents were gone. They had all moved into many of the apartments that had ben renovated. Jen did a great job with the resources she had available. The glas and material problem was solved after a trading deal with the Pitt was signed. Since The Mall now was maybe the only place on the whole east coast that produced medicine and quality Brahim skin and food, they had a strong card to bring with them to the negotiation table. Caravan traders came from everywhere to trade in what was becoming a capital of the east coast. The military forces had also increased and was now counting over 700 people, all top equipped and with training reaching far beyond normal conscription. The population of the mall could possible reach 10.000 within some few months. But not all was perfect. Lyons did not agree with Sims and Hannibal about the issue with the slavers who had become the other major factor of the capital wasteland. They controlled the northern area almost all the way to the commonwealth, and made sure that all trade routes had too through either east or west.

But at this day, the biggest problem would walk to the entrance port of The Mall. It was the sentry guard at the guard tower who saw the person walking slowly towards the gate. He followed protocol and gave his superior at guard tent message. He climbed up the ladder on the other side of the gate of the wall and took up his binoculars. He was surprised of what he saw. It was person wearing a power armor, but all the patrols had been accounted for and there were no one out now. The person come closer. The officer was unsure about what he should do. So he shouted out.

" Stop and Identify yourself!"

The figure stopped 20 meter from the gate. He saw that the person was a blond haired woman.

"I am Sentinel Sarah Lyons, and..." that was all she managed to say before she fell down to the ground.

The west wing of the History of Technology had been unofficially the hospital of The mall. At one point the Our lady of Hope Hospital was proposed, but after a quick survey Annebelle decided that it had no use since it was run down and all useful equipment were gone. For the first time the were armed guards at the Entrance. After Elder Lyons got word of his daughter return and collapse he sent a squad of his Paladins to guard her. Now they watched everyone that went in and out.

Sarah Lyons was lying on a hospital bed in a private room guarded on the outside by an armed power armor paladin. She had attached an IV through her left arm after Annebelle diagnosed her with extreme fatigue. Now she had slept for three days and she was starting to wake up. Her eyes opened up and she studied her surroundings, it was a white sterile room, much more sterile than she expected from the citadel. She turned around and made enough noise so the guard outside heard her. The door opened and he saw her awake.

"Welcome back Sentinel, i have been instructed to give Elder Lyons a word when you wake up. I hope that is okay for you."

"Yes, i need to speak with him right away, and are the Lone wanderer still here?"

"He is, should i also notify him?"

"Yes please."

It did not take more than 10 minutes before both Elder Lyons and TLW was with her in the hospital room. In the meantime Annebelle had given her a physical examination and came to the conclusion that after some days of bedrest she will back to normal.

"So you are finally back?" Elder Lyons asked.

"Yes father, i have fulfilled my mission and i have not good news for us."

" So tell us, what did you find out."

She started telling:

_We went out on this mission few days after the destruction of the Adams airforce base. Me and my group. We decided to go north first, and found out soon that the slavers were in panic. They were afraid that without the Enclave the Brotherhood would be strong enough to crush Paradise Falls. Good news for us of course, but something were wrong. We spied on them for some days and noticed a presence of the Talon mercenaries. A merger between those would maybe create an organization strong enough too survive. We sent these intel through the Pip Boy and went west. After two weeks traveling we started to se signs of civilization. And we were right, were traveling into the influential sphere of the city of Ronto, or at least it once was. Because Ronto had been in a war with an ruthless society. They had ultimate lost the battle and their city was burned, the earth salted, their men crucified and the women forced into slavery. The traders we meet only said one thing "all hail Ceasar". We went into the ruins of Ronto, and i have never seen a city so destroyed with the use of nuclear bombs. The city was once bigger, bigger than the Mall, and now it was only some coaled remains. But then we saw it. The men, they had been put on a cross, only supported with by nails hammered into their arms. They were suffering, those who were alive. We knew that we could not help them, there were hundreds of them. We used the whole night to do mercy killings. Terry decided to go back to report this since we were long gone from the radius of the Pip boy._

_The rest off us continued to follow the trail of destruction. The more we saw, the more we understood we were facing an enemy that never seen before. An enemy with no sympathy and respect for the human life. One day we realised too late that were closing in onto the fighting army. We were ambushed by a group of them. I think we killed at least fifteen of them before we were surrounded. Since i was a girl i was spared but the rest of the group was executed at the spot by those monsters. They brought me too a camp where i was slave and then was sold to an officer who i had to please whenever he wanted. After three months i barely held my physiological barriers up. Thats when i heard it. I was brought into my slave master tent, lying chained in the bed i was not supposed the hear the conversation between him and and a fellow officer. It was then i realised that the Legion was called conquer of 86 tribes. There number are at least 20.000 soldiers._

_They talked about the capital wasteland. The slavers in Paradise falls is either controlled or influenced by the Legion and they want to destroy The Mall. There also talked about the spy within the Mall. Another two weeks passed and i was ordered to pick up water from a nearby river. I was followed by to foot soldiers, but the moment they slipped their eyes i jumped into the river. The current took me several kilometer down the river. From there i ran east so fast i could. After four days i was starting to believe i was outside the Legions sphere of influence. After another month i finally found back here. _

The silence went through the room.

"If this is true.." Lyons said slowly.

" The reports shows that slavers have 500 men at their disposal, thats why they have not attacked. They are waiting for the legion. They can crush us in a moment." TLW said with a low pitched voice.

" Then we need to attack first. I will send a message to Megaton and Arefu about the immediate danger. Hopefully could we evacuate them here and create a stronger fortification."

" We need to strike against Paradise Falls, if we break their stronghold there we will shatter them and make it hard for the Legion to ever establish themselves here."

"Then let it happen. mobilize Safari and Hoover company and i will give orders to arm the Vertibirds."

"Are they trained yet to handle its fighting capabilities?

"They know more than they did when we started, and thats all we got." Elder Lyons answered.

The Lone wanderer took a deep breath and remembered something that were being said too him a long time ago.

War...war never changes.


	8. The battle of Paradise Falls

**Chapter 8: The battle of Paradise Falls.**

18 men sat in the Atrium at the museum of Technology and listen to Elder Lyons the next morning. They were all pilots on the vertibirds that were going to be deployed to Paradise Falls. Two of them were pilots on the small ones that were gunships, while the rest were for the transport ships. Elder Lyons started talking. "Brotherhood of Steel, today is the day we once need to go too war. New intelligence suggest that the slavers at Paradise falls represents a immediate threat against The Mall. Therefore will we today perform a pre-emptive strike against them.

A map was behind them. It showed Paradise falls from a satellite perspective. It had some markers highlighted in red.. "Here is the place our intelligence says that the slaves are being held. Its imperative that this place will not be subject of our fire." Elder Lyons pointed to the eastern section of Paradise Falls.

"The attack will be in two strike. The two gunships will attack the front section and weaken their defence. After that the Transport ships will drop off troops here and create a spearhead. The transport needs to take three trips to transport all of our men. The gunship needs to watch them in the meantime. The operation will commence in two hours, and i need all you too stay here until that time. Any question?"

**One hour later.**

Infront of Lincoln memorial 200 men were gathered in full battle gear. TLW walked around them, if not just for the morale of seeing the Hero of Wasteland fighting with them, and he would fight indeed. Armed with the Assault Rifle and the specialised Power armor he was ready for another fight. He was though worried. The Power armor of the steels was of course helping them, but they were not invincible with them. The slavers had most likely both plasma and laser weapons. Those thing could paralyze a Power armor in one hit since it send a laser beam of many thousand degrees against almost pure steel.

" Finally some action" a voice behind him said.

" Reilly, you are coming with us?"

" Hell yeah, i am not leaving behind the men i myself have trained for this situation and i also would like too give some of them slavers a trip back too hell." She was dressed in her green combat armor and had plasma rifle in her hands.

" You would have to stand in line behind me" it came from Hannibal Hamlin. He had a shotgun with a patron belt around his shoulders. "For the first time i have a fighting chance against those demons, i would sure as hell not miss this opportunity." He choked his shotgun.

" Then welcome abroad." TLW said. He hoped he could take both Hamlin and Reilly back from Paradise Falls also. This was war and people would be killed. It worried him that there were not more than a night of planing this attack. But Lyons was afraid of the supposed spy that were lurking within the mall and developed his battle-plan only with some of his few trusted advisors, and even them were kept under heavy supervision the whole night.

"Okay listen up, A platoon of steels will take up first position and be the first one in action, but we will go down in the next to create support and push the final attack on Paradise Falls. The Vertibirds take six at time so stay together with the group. Remember your training and you will survive this. Paradise Falls is a hellhole, but thats the place we will send the filth too hell." It was Reilly who announced the battle plan standing on the third step of the Lincoln Memorial.

**30 minutes later.**

The two gunships took off from the citadel at 12.05. The transport started immediately filling up with the Steels who got the honor to be first and battle and followed quick behind. At the center of the Citadel where the Liberty Prime once was, sat Elder Lyons and watched the map while listening to the radio.

" Eagle 1, two minutes from target."

" Eagle 2, two minutes from target."

The pulse across the room started to increase. Lyons advisors stood next to him, and so did almost all of the scribes. This was the first test of the fighting capabilities to a new nation, and would their fail here there would be no second chances.

"This is Eagle 1, visual on target, autorize lethal action."

" Eagle 2 here, also need autorization."

Elder Lyons closed the eyelid for a moment and then said the two words that again would create the death and misery that they worked so hard too prevent.

"Authorization given." The room went silent.

All hell broke loose.

**Paradise Falls**

For the people guarding Paradise falls had no chance or no idea off what would happen. They heard the noise of the Vertibird. The slaver with the name Ymir was the one that saw them. He was a big man that was feared all around the area. The things he had done to earn the respect of the inhabitants of Paradise Falls would not be appropriated to ever tell about. He dropped his food and yelled at all his might when he saw the two big birds in the sky. He know what that meant immediately.

"Alarm! Its the fucking rustheads!"

Then the front entrance exploded by the first missile fired from The Vertibird. Three slavers died immediately. Two more was blown away from the blast and seriously injured. The slavers went into alarm modus and started running out into the open area to try too find out what happend, bad idea. The machine gun on one the second Vertibird fired into the courtyard and killed two more people. A new missile fired and created a big fire next to the entrance, it also blow away any obstacles to the main entrance.

Three more was fired. Two of them destroyed the guards tower, removing the possibilities of the slavers gaining an upper edge of the battlefield. It also killed three more slavers who were trying to climb up for that purpose. The last one misfired and exploded on the backside of the complex.

"Eagle 1, missiles empty, returning."

"First attack done, commencing stage two. Providing Rapid covering fire while establishing beach-head." The other pilot said through the helmet. The first transport ship arrived and skipped out six steels that right away started to fight the slavers. But they did not advance the 100 meters that were between them and the compound. They hold the line and waited for the next six steels, and then the next six again. After only 3 minutes they were enough to start the push. Running in line with almost a meter between them they started running against the burning wreckage of what once was the entrance to the most feared place in the wasteland. Then one felt down. He had been hit by a bullet in the Eye. The weak spot of the armor. He died before he hit the ground.

**Lincoln memorial.**

At the Memorial TLW jumped into the first arriving Vertibird. He was not allowed on the first wave, but he would be the first of the second wave. The vertibird took off right away and started its 15 minutes transport ride to Paradise falls. He thought about it. He had survived almost impossible odds before, when fighting enclave almost alone, when the supermutant hunted him through the pile of waste, but this was different. This was open warfare where he would fight willingly against an enemy, and he had responsibility not only for himself, but for the other soldier around him also. The four men and the one girl sitting next to him on the vertibird was in their own world. They were afraid, and why should not they be? This was war and maybe the closet thing yet of player poker with death. Reilly had promised that were not just drilled in military maneuver and weapon handling, but also in handling shell shock and real combat situation. She told that she shot with assault rifle, laser rifle and plasma rifle over their head at practice just so they would be used too the sounds.

"Dropzone hot" the pilot suddenly shouted. 12 minutes went fast. TLW looked at the fellow soldiers, they were nervous, of course, no training could make up for the fact that they can could die today. The vertibird descended one meter and opened the hatch. It revealed a area not so bad as feared. The steels had pushed them long enough away so they would not threaten the area.

"Lets go!" TLW shouted.

They dropped down and saw the situation. There were two dead steels lying infront of them. But the rest of them had pushed forward and made the slavers retreat. They could hear the gunshot from inside the complex. TLW runned to the burning rest of the gate and saw more bodies. Both Steels and slavers but with a bigger ration of the slavers. Then he saw them. About 10 steels seeking cover and shooting behind a old bus that now functioned as a wall. LTW took cover right behind him and checked his assault rifle again. It was just repaired, but he would not play with chances today.

"Who is in charge here?!"

" I am," a random steel answered with a metallic voice, filtered through the breathing tube inside the mask.

"Where is the rest of you?"

" We split up, my group is keeping them at bay, while the others are trying to flank them."

" How is that working for you guys?" LTW asked.

" Not soo good, i have more casualties than expected, and the flanks could not find a open area to flank them from, so they are retreating back here. I have a bad feeling about this. It seems that we will need the ordinary military support and rush them from here."

LTW took a look at the opposite site and saw at least fifty people defending their position.

"That would be a bloodbath, we need atleast 100 men to rush over and take over the position and atleast half of our men will die."

"I agree, but in this situation all of us wil die." The steel answered with.

" Stay here, i will try weaken their barricade. You and you follow me, the rest keep up with the support." He pointed at two soldiers that followed him into a side door. He remembered that he was visiting the place while fighting against the enclave. There were tons of side doors at this place, so the slavers could easily suprise the troops from The mall and give casualty beyond what was acceptable. He went down a small corridor with his weapon raised. Two seconds later a slaver popped up on the other end of the corridor. He felt by the bullets from TLW who would go inside the same door as the slaver came out from. They come to a closed door.

Jackpot!

It lead to one of the main rooms, there were at least 10 slavers in the room, who ran around with panic. But the room was also filled with ammo box and stimpaks. On the end of the room was many weapons lying in a pile. This had to be their armory.

"Where is the reinforcement from Talon?" one of them shouted.

"Talon has betrayed us, just like Vulpus. We are alone!" the other one said right before he took a dose of Jet to motivate himself. The slaver went into a frenzy and went outside again with his weapon lifted and started firing at the same moment he went out of the door.

LTW turned around and asked for a grenade. One of the soldier carefully passed the grenade to him. He took out the pin, held in the button, and counted to 3. Then he opened up the door and threw the grenade inside the room.

"Get down!" he said while closing the door and throwing himself on the ground.

A second passed before a big bang blew the door open. Some screams broke the distant sound of gunfire.

LTW lifted himself up and jumped into the room. Everybody inside the room was dead. The grenade had killed everyone inside. The two soldiers followed him, one of them felt nauseating when seeing the the many body parts lying around. Outside the window the battle still continued. But it was clear now that the slavers would loose this. Now that TLW opened up the flank and cut them off from their ammunition supply, it was only a matter of time.

**10 minutes later**

The slavers numbers was heavily reduced and they had a last stand right infront of the house that their leader lived in. A group of steels followed the path that TLW had created and took down at least 20 of them before the regrouped where they were now. TLW followed the attack squad and fired into the improvised fortification. The gunfire killed four more slavers who were starting to loose their last fiber of morale. They seemed to start realising that the Paradise Falls would fall and their time was over. After three more casualties the last seven decided enough was enough and surrendered. In a fitting move it was Hannibal Hamlin that were allowed to accept their surrender. When he watched the last seven slavers he was disappointed that he did not recognize anyone of them, all them had joined the business after his time. Anyhow it was a delight to tell them that the leader of the Temple of the union was the one that accepted their surrender.

They prisoners of war were quickly taken into arrest and removed from the area by the steels. The gunfire had finally stopped and there was a uncomfortable silence that took over the complex, just broken by some screams and crying here and there.

"We need to check that house." LTW pointed at the building not long after the slavers surrendered. Now the clean up process started. Steels and soldiers went house to house and checked if there were not some pockets of resistance left. LTW on the other hand had a real crawing of clearing the house where the leader of the slavers lived. He ordered to soldiers to follow him into what could be described as penthouse. In the middle was a big heart shaped bed that were empty. It had been abandoned for a long time. "Whoever lived here is long gone by now." one of the soldiers remarked.

That was bad news. Mr Rourke words had haunted him, and not to find out the identity of this man was devastating.

The total casualties was not as god as hoped, but not as bad as feared. 23 soldiers had lost their lives in this battle, this included 15 steels. A catastrophic loss for the Brotherhood that they would need some time to replace. The slavers on the other hand lost over 69 men. The most of them died while being inside one of the buildings when one of the missiles from the Vertibirds hit them. Among them was the infamous slavers Ymir and Jotun, two men that had made life miserable for many wastelands. There where not a big loss for the Capital wasteland. But what was worrying is that there were no Talon soldiers among the dead. There actually were no sign of them ever being here. The light in this sea of dead was that over 32 slaves had been freed. One had died by a bullet that had richohet from one of the buildings. Now there was four Vertibird circling around the place while soldiers patrolled the area. Lyons had given orders too confiscate and bring back all documents or things that could be useful, then burn the place to the ground. That would not happen for several hours since the search around the area still was ongoing.

"I dont like this" LTW said to Lyons trough the radio.

" Yeah, i have read the first reports. No mercenaries at the compound, only slavers. There should be some traces of the Talon if there were a co-operation here." Lyons added.

" Can you send some scouts to Fort Bannister, i dont believe the previous reports of the please being abandoned."

"Already done. Dont worry about it now. Some of the slaves probably have seen or watched something that is useful. And we also have seven prisoners that we can persuade to tell us something." Lyons felt the headache coming.

" On more thing, we found the remains of Leroy Jones. The former leader of the slavers, but he have been dead for at least a year based on the corpse. We could only recognise him from his clothes and some personal belongings.

"So someone else have been the leaders of the slavers the last year."

"Correct, and i intend to find out who." LTW finished the conversation.

It was clearly night when Lyons was completely satisfied with the search of the compound and allowed the soldiers to burn the place to the ground. Hannibal and five other soldiers were the last one to leave the compund. The whole place was socked in kerosine when Hannibal Hamlin threw the torch that started the fire. He saw the line of fire spreading while he slowly walked towards the last Vertibird. The last step inside was taken with a heart that was much lighter than it was this morning. The Vertibird starting ascending as the compound was taken over the flames and it started the flight back while the black fire rised up. Paradise Falls would now only be a note in the history as the darkest place of the human mind.


	9. The dome of heaven

**Chapter 9: The dome of heaven.**

The effects of burning down Paradise Falls did not take long to notice. With the northern area threat removed a stable trade and communication line between the Mall and The Commonwealth was established. More and more refugees started to come and for the first time the problem of housing all of them starting to be possibility. For the first time Elder Lyons started to see the possibility of moving in to senate building. He created a task-force led by Jen for this reason. The trenches infront had been filled a long time ago, but the stairs was still bearing the scars of the wars that had been fought on the steps and of course there was also a corpse of a Behemoth Super Mutant lying under the dome. There were several people that hoped that it had rotten away since it had died almost 2 years ago. Jen included.

She now walked up the steps into the Senate with five armed guards around her. Since it was not declared a safe area it was better to be safe then sorry. She stopped on the top of the stairs and looked at the Mall. It was a beatiful sight. New buildings and windows reflecting the sunlight. It was people actually going too work and there was also the first cafe established at the The mall. And the last month all of the births were normal, no stillborn children, it was truly a miracle.

**The citadel**

At the same time, something less than a miracle happend on the other side of the Mall. At the basement of the Citadel seven people were being interrogated. Alle of them former slavers and all of them prisoners of war. But the Brotherhood had no time for definition of what was right and wrong, they needed answer. Knight Hanks throwed another punch at the handcuffed man sitting in a chair. It hit the prisoner so hard that he fell from the ground and down with a serious bruise.

"For the last time!, where are the Talon and what is your connection too the Legion?" Hanks said.

"I dont know what you are talking about!" the slaver almost cried out. His face was red and blue and his nose was broken.

"Is this really necessary?" Annabelle asked while watching the whole ordeal through a video monitor.

"Did they take pity on the countless of slaves we now uses lots of resources on so they can have a normal life." The younger Sarah Lyons answered.

"Are we like them?" Annabelle countered the answer with.

Sarah Lyons had really hated herself for not being able to fight in the battle of Paradise Falls. She had been pumped with tons of Stimpak to heal her broken bones, but it could not help against fatigue and réhabilitons of the limbs. For days she used all her time too train herself up again to be the best soldier of the Brotherhood and the Pride of her father. No she was almost in hundred prosent capacity and was supervising the interrogation of the slavers captured in the battle.

"We don't have time for being ethical, these bastards would love to see this place burn and carry all around us in chain. I see no reason not be a little bit harsh too get the truth out of them."

Lyons pushed the button of the intercom on the side of the monitor and started talking.

" Hanks, take a break."

From the monitor Annabelle could see Hanks left the room and two seconds later entered the room the two women were standing in.

" I actually believe that he does not know anything." Hanks said.

" I agree, from the documents we took from Paradise Falls he is a lower class slaver. Barely managed to capture anyone and have been in the game way to little too have any loyalty too the slavers." Sarah proclaimed.

"So what do we do now?" Annabelle asked

" We could sell him to the Pitt, i heard that they are looking too expand after we ordered all of their steel and windows." Hanks smiled by his own suggestion.

"No, strict orders too keep these guys. I think my old man wants to use them as founding stone of the new legal mumbo jumbo he is planing with the security council. But we have six orders to go through with. Some of them will talk, even though it can talk a while. Annabelle, give him something for his wounds and then take him back to the den.

The den was a building not far away from the citadel used for storing prisoners. It was rigged with C4 at central places that would collapse the whole building if there was a prison riot.

"So whats next?" Annabelle asked.

"We need information, i have scribes reading throughout the day of the things we took from Paradise Falls, someone or something will know. Just be patient."

**The mall**

"What should we do, we are heavily outnumbered and its only matter of time before they flank us" TLW said with a low voice.

" We can try to attack, but it's a suicide." said Donovan who were standing next too him.

"Let's do it, we have no other choice."

There were two seconds of silence, before TLW shouted "RUUNN!".

Donovan started sprinting and TLW followed just behind him. The enemy would stop them in a matter of second but they had to try it.

"Over here!" Donovan scream, TLW look around and saw that he had no other choice than too pass the ball to Donovan.

He throwed the little ball that was called a football and throwed it to Donovan who managed somehow to grab it. But that was the end of the line. He was tackled by an steel who had the day off. Donovan fell to the ground and the play was over.

"Damn it!" Donovan scream loudly enough so that the ordinary citizens that was just walking, working or something else at the mall heard him.

The last three weeks after the destruction of Paradise Falls had been some good ones. Some projects that were scraped or delayed could be set too use. Like starting with the renovation of the former senate building. Jen had really been busy, requesting over 100 men too help her with gigantic project of making the dome of heaven the center of the mall. Now there was some scaffolding around the building and some men going around doing stuff. It would take many months to be finished.

In the meantime a new game had taken the mall with storm. People who throughout their life only thought about their survival and too live too the next day actually found some problems with their new life of stability, security and not at least peace. They actually had cases of people that went back into the wasteland to either work as caravan traders or simply go back too what they did. Annabelle and her colleagues had little expertise in the field of psychology, and could little do anything but the basic treatments. But when a ordinary soldier with the name of Brady found an old football and a magazine about American football a new hobby was born. Some of the soldiers started to playing it and filled in the rules as the game progressed. Soon every man, women and children found interest in the new game. They sewed their own balls and it was played on every available spot around the mall. TLW also fell for the game. It was basically a game where there were two teams, and the objective was to get the ball to the other side of the field, but with only one forward pass per play and a person had to put it down at the end of the field. Now he played it with Donovan and the rest of his squad against some steels that was off-duty for the day. They also had some people sitting around the improvised field they made just under the Washington monument and saw the game.

"Was this the life people lived before the bomb fell? Why would they sacrifice all this happiness?" TLW said silent to himself.

"Okay, this was not a good idea, lets try it again!" Donovan screamed and snapped TLW away from his train of thought.

**1 hour later.**

The sweat was running down TLW neck. It was hot today, but the game was also physically demanding, and after a couple of hours enough was enough. He emptied a bottle of Aqua Pura in one zip and looked at the watch at his Pip-boy. It was the middle of the day and he was already done with his appointments for today. After the battle of Paradise Falls, things had been gone slow. Scouts had confirmed a second time that Fort Bannister was abandoned, and the search for the supposedly mole was going nowhere. Scribes were collecting and going through all the data but still found nothing. Hannibal used all his time too talk and help the slaves they liberated at Paradise Falls, but they could all tell the same. That the longest a slave were in Paradise Falls was one week. After that some of the slavers came and took them away never too be seen again. Some of the slaves had asked too go home. One of them wanted to back to the city of Ronto, only too be told that the city had been sacked. Two other had committed suicide by jumping into the river with a stone attached to their belly. Hannibal had worked almost around the clock to make sure that the formers slaves could be healthy again. He worked so much that they actually had to sedate him once so he could get 12 hours of sleep. But Elder Lyons said that soon they would have a breakthrough, one way or another.

TLW had to decide what the rest of the day should be used too. He would not bother Jen, she probably had lots to do without he interrupting. He took a look up on the Washington Monument and saw the Virgo lunar dish. It was a long time since he had visited Three Dog. He decided to take a trip to Galaxy News Radio.

Only two years ago the trip to the radio station would be hard and dangerous with supermutants lurking in every corner, but now it was a 10 minutes walk on the cleaned and partially repaired roads, while watching the renovated buildings and meeting familiar people. Exactly ten minutes after leaving the mall he arrived at the station. The radio station was directly next too the barricade. They actually expanded it from the orginal position just so that the station could be on the inside of the perimeter. And no wonder, it was maybe the most important building right now. Not only for broadcasting news and information to the citizens of The mall, but also for trying to reach other settlements and to have a military radio channel between the different military outposts.

The two steel guarding the entrance greeted TLW. The area was cleaned up sine last time, but then again there was a giant Behemoth of a super mutant lying there last time he was here. Inside the building was also different. There was actually a reception where a nice looking female civilian was sitting behind a newly aquired desk. The walls was painted in white and the lights were fixed. It looked more fresh and more clean. Someone had also replaced the broken doors with new ones.

" Hi, welcome to Galaxy news radio, can i help you?" the receptionist asked with the most pleasant voice that TLW have heard in a while.

"Yes, i am just here too visit Three dog"

"Oh, he is busy with recording todays show now, can you wait 20 minutes until he is done?"

"Sure, can you in the meantime tell me what have been done here?" TLW asked.

"Certainly. After the peace, Elder Lyons ordered that the first floor was to be used for military radio and frequency chatter while Tree dog and GNR should still have the second floor. They sent in a workforce that brushed up the place and here is the result."

" And how did you get to work here."

"Oh, its a long story, i dont think i will bother you with that."

" Try me" TLW answered with.

"It's not like its a story worth telling, but basically i was born in a small settlement four-five days from here, lived there until my 20th birthday before i was taken in as an apprentice for a local doctor. Three years i was there until the doctor sent me to Arefu. I was there for two days before i moved here and got hired by Three-dog."

"Oh really, so you now live here?"

"Yes, i got a a priority when it came to the room list. So i live in Vernon Hotel with a bed, bathroom, electricity and and running water. Something i was told they lived with only in fairy tales."

"And what do you do here then?"

" I basically take care of all the administrative work here. The citadel have ordered documentations on all the expensive we have, and they also want logs about what we send and when. And of course greeting famous heroes like yourself."

"Of course." TLW said while trying to hide the blush in his face.

He waited another ten minutes before Three-dog walked down from the stairs. He had changed after the changes that happened the last year and half. He had gained some pounds and was now dressed in some better clothes. He also had a gold chain around his neck. TLW realised that this guy was the only one that actually was some form of social celebrity in the wasteland, with his voice stretching far away and to places he even did not know about.

"My man, give me some love!" he almost screamed. The soldier in the lobby turned around for a second before going back into guard-mode. The receptionist just smiled.

He gave Three-dog a hug.

"What up player, i haven't seen your white ass for a while."

TLW waited some seconds, what kind of language was that?

"I just took the trip too see what was happening here. Seems like you got the situation here in pretty good control."

"Yeah dude. Some scavengers have sold me tons of holotapes with old days music. I found tons of new music. It seemed that around the time before the bomb fell, there were a new music genre playing on the radios. It was basically people talking fast and in rhythm, and i found it somehow appealing." Three-dog smiled and revealed a gold tooth.

"And now the citadel are talking about improving my broadcast around the area. It's after all because of me that so many heard about the mall and arrived here. So things are good, real mother fucking good." He smiled again.

"Three-dog, we have a problem here." A voice behind him said.

It was a technician wearing a white overall who came out of the offices on the first floor.

"Well, speak then."

"We have interference on the receiver in Megaton, probably just some shit that needs to be cleaned at the tower there."

"Well, since we can't contact them someone needs to go there and fix it." Three-dog proclaimed.

"I can go" The lone wanderer said.

"Really?"

"Yeah, its been a long while since i been there, and i could use the five hours walk there. I have a house there that has not been attended to lately."

"Well then. Thanks i guess. I will get you the gear you need.

Megaton next.


	10. Megaton

TLW decided that he would make the trip before nightfall if he hurried. He took up his backpack and put it on his shoulder. It weighted enough to take out some of the fatigue, but was lightly enough to not slow him down. Tree-dog had also put in some water and food for the trip. He was good to go.

He had several choices to get to Megaton. Either go around the barricade and take the bridge over the river and then basically follow the road too Megaton. It was a safe area now with over three checkpoints with soldiers guarding the route, but it was also an hour detour. He then decided to take the ferry from behind the Lincoln memorial, go through the Arlington cemetery and pass Greyditch. It was the safer route and it was also the one people took when they going to work on the other side of the rider or around the "breadbasket."

It was a nice change of pace to actually get around the countryside of the mall. Greyditch had become the place where the farmers and ranch owners around the "breadbasket" area came to trade and to get their essentials. He did not go through it this time but instead went to another place that he had visited before. The Super-duper mart. The deserted shopping centre that was once a raider camp and a place were lots of people were tortured and killed. Not it was abandoned. Unlike most of the other ruins of the Capitol Wasteland, there was no concrete plans on what to do with this building. Everything of value had a long time ago been removed and it was only a shell of a building now. TLW stopped for a second and watched it and let his thought wander for a second. Then he continued on his journey. Megaton was only a hour away now.

As he walked down the road he had to notice the changes that were being made. He had taken a detour looking at Super-duper mart, but when he again came onto the main trade route things had changed. First of all there were unarmed people walking the roads. That itself was a modern day miracle. But the road itself had been much better. On about 80% of the distance stone or cement had been laid so it made the walk much easier and much faster. There were checkpoints where armed soldiers was standing by incase the rare threat of radio scorpions attacked, something that happened less and less frequently. Behind Megaton the ranch had start spreading and was growing into the borders of the town. The backside of the wall that protected the city had been removed, creating opportunities to expand the city. The entrance had been previously been protected by a robot and a sniper, but now there were to easy barracks with atleast 20 soldier standing guard. The machinery that closed the main entrance was still there though, ready to be closed on moment notice.

The city itself had changed. Simms who often patroled the city alone needed help from atleast five people every day just too keep the presence in the street. The crime rate had first increased and then decreased when Simms reorganized the Regulators from operating in the wasteland to be a kind of marshal of the law in small settlements. Now Megaton was the biggest settlement outside of the mall and a place for people to get away and stay for a different perspective of life. The waterworks had also been changed to meet the demands of an ever growing city. But thanks too the Jefferson memorial project there was enough water to the wasteland for at least two or three generations. A pipeline was made and pumped water into the city and created also the one thing people outside the vaults never had experienced, a warm shower.

TLW was enjoying this luxury for the first time since he had left the vault, his house was just as he left it, and he for once felt a relaxation about everything was fine for the first time in a long long time. Afterwards he sat down on a couch, thinking about everything that had happened until now. He was going to look at the receiver tower but needed some time for himself first. Hell, he would fix it right away to get be done with it. He dressed up in his jumpsuit that had the numbers on the back worn out after a long use. He considered equipping a gun, he still needed to do that but it was maybe a matter of time before the need inside a settlement of being armed was gone. There was at least three regulators and one army soldier standing guard at the center of megaton. They actually had a booth were there always was a soldier at duty so people at Megaton could run there if the need for protection arise. He walked down the aisle to the center where the bomb once was. The cafeteria was still there but had increased their business to expand to a second floor and they also had refurnished the place so it looked a little less dirty, and the business was blooming thanks to those things.

The Lone Wanderer decided to eat something after his belly rumbled again. He sat down, ordered a Nuka Cola and some iguana-on-stick. It smelled delicious. The first stick went down in seconds and half of the cola seconds later. The culinary cuisine of the wasteland changed also as the time went by. Brahim steak was of course now the main dinner dish for almost anyone living here. There were enough of them too goo around and one brahim provided food for 100 people if every part of it were used, and now there were over 10.000 brahims in the capital wasteland. The nuka cola was another case. Unfortunately it was not a priority of things needed to be produced, and therefore something scavengers looked for in ruins. At the beginning it was easy too meet the demand with thousand of vending machines just lying around, but soon it started to be more and more difficult too find them and people with money started to pay more and more for them. It was still not too expensive too get one. For The lone wanderer it was free after he had saved the city from a nuclear annihilation, but if not it would have costed him maybe 100 caps. A price that would triple if not a good source would be found soon. The rumors of a Nuka cola factory filled with the black honet had lead more than one man too search the wastelands with all the dangers that lurked around.

It filled his belly and gave him a feeling of satisfaction. He let the food go down his stomach some minutes before he left the table. Now there was the case with the broken radio-tower. It was situated two minutes outside the city on the areas highest point. It was once a other broadcast-tower with a waterpump, but it had been modified the last year to also be a broadcast tower to spread information too the thousands of thousands of wastelander that started to settle the area. The walk was easy. The radscorpions had been a long time ago erased from the area and the biggest threat was now dust and stone coming flying with the wind. The tower itself was guarded by one guard sitting in a both, just accompanied by a radio, some magazines and a standard sub-machine gun. The guard was there not because of raider threat, but because some crows, moles and and other rodents suddenly could arrive and destroy something if they were not chased away. TLW had a suspicion that it was exactly this that had happend now and some guard had been sleeping or not noticed it.  
"Good morning soldier" he said to the soldier that sat on a chair inside the shed and reading a police story magazine. The soldier quickly stood up when he saw who was coming. TLW was a famous face that all soldier should have seen.  
"God morning sir!" he said with a stout voice.  
" So, have is the new life treating you?" he asked the soldier who was at least 10 centimeter taller than him.  
"Incredible sir. One and a half year ago i was fighting for my life against the mutants and Talon, and now i have a job that gives me caps that i can buy food and water with and i have my own place in Megaton. I am now living and not only existing."  
"So what did you do before the founding of the Mall?"  
"I was raider sir."  
"Excuse me, a raider?"  
"Yes sir."  
TLW though about all the raiders he had killed, it was maybe hundred, but he did not regret it. They were animals that slaughtered and killed innocent people that only tried to survive.  
"Than you must hate me, i killed many of you. But more important, how did you change. The raiders were a bunch of Jet psychos that killed for fun.  
"I do not hate you. You fight a battle for good, a battle where we dont have to wonder if the next day is the day we day. And when it comes too the raiders, they had families also. I meet you once actually. I lived at Evergreen mills, and you released the abonmation that was called Behemoth. After the massacre it was just me and two other raiders left. We tried to catch up with another group, but they just killed the two others on sight. I got away. I hid and lived on mole rats for three months. Until i noticed the pure water coming out from the basin. I surrendered to some Steels. In exchange for information on the raiders i was allowed to be a soldier. Trained for four months and then placed here."  
"Good for you, i believe you saved lots of live by helping us with the raiders threat. What's your name?"  
"I was called Rash, but i prefer the name Matthew.  
"Matthew it is then. I have a problem with the communication tower, it does not receive the transmission from The mall."  
"Oh, ok. There was a guy here two days ago, but i will open the gate and let you see it again.  
"Thanks."

It took them two hours with climbing too check the tower. But then TLW noticed it. It was placed inside the smaller second dish. A round object that was beeping a signal. TLW had seen it before, when he lived inside the vault. It was a transmitter that send a ping-signal to a specific location. But it also had a second function. It could receive signals from a nearby source and it also could block the interference. It had been placed there with purpose. TLW climbed down and went back to Matthew.  
"Do you have a ham radio inside the shack?"  
"Yes sir."  
" Then send a call to the Citadel. Frequency 184.00 and say the code STOLTENBERG SUGER. Then ask for a Verti-bird to get to this location ASAP. I need to go there immediately."  
"Right away sir." The Matthew ran away.  
TLW looked at the little square box he had in his hand. It still beeped. Who had placed it there and why?

Not more than 30 minutes later he walked into the B-ring of the citadel. He also took with him Matthew who had seen the guy that possibly had placed it there.  
"Woow, i never been here before. I once saw it through a binocular, but just being in a radius of 100 meters was a death sentence."  
"I felt it the same way first time i was here. Now its more like a second home."  
They stopped right before the group room.  
"Wait here until i call for you."  
"Yes sir" Matthew stopped and saw the TLW walk into the room.

After 10 minutes of debriefing Elder Lyons and his daughter the silence went down into room.  
"So, who was it that placed it there?" Sarah asked  
"I dont know. Could be Talon mercenaries, but they have disappeared into the earth after Paradise Falls felt." TLW said.  
"Thats right. I have doubled the scouts into the north-western area, but we havent seen one Talon soldier the last two months. We now believe that they have withdrawn. I had some men raid Fort Bannister, but they found burned ashes and nothing else." Elder Lyons summarised.  
"They are not retreating. They are regrouping." Sarah said.  
"They are planing something. They have taped our broadcasts the last two days. I dont think they expected that the taping would give interference in the broadcast signal. What about the witness?"  
"I can bring him in" TLW said.  
"Then do it."

Not more than a minute later Matthew stood infront of them.  
"I can not say that he looked different then the rest of the so called engineers that arrives. He was wearing a blue overall and said that he was ordered from The mall too fix the antenna. He looked like a normal caucasian guy with black hair. But there was something in the way he talked and walked. It was like he was to civilized almost. Talked with advanced words."  
"Oh my god!" she said loudly.  
"What is it?" her father asked.  
"Its the Frumentarii."  
"The what?" TLW asked.  
"The spy network for the legion. I know remember it. They sendt some of the officers to an unknown location. I heard them talk about it while i was chained in the bedroom of the tent. This must be it. Trust me, there could be no one else of the factions that is strong enough to attack us. We need to check the other radio masts also. I believe that all of them are tapped, but this one got discovered because of being placed to close to the dish." Sarah Lyons said.  
"I will get it checked right away." The Elder Lyons said and walked out the room.  
"Thanks Matthew, i will make sure that the next supply transport with the Vertibird will have a room for you."  
"Thanks sir."

TLW used his room at the citadel to spend the night. The next morning Elder Lyons woke him up.  
"All seven of them were bugged. They could have been tapping us longer than two days. We have been broadcasting since before the foundation of the The mall." he said with a sharp tone.  
"I think that we are looking for the enemy behind our enemies. The ones that have pushed all the buttons with the slavers and Talon."  
" I agree. But if they are planing something, they are not far away. We have to prepare for the worst." Elder Lyons said with a low voice.  
"We must prepare for war."  
War, war never changes...


	11. Second Link

Something had changed around the Mall. First of all the new focus were on war and defence. Scouts and scavengers went out and took with them all they could find of weapons and ammunition and sold it back too the Brotherhood. They again started to maintain them and make them ready for action again. Ammo was produced in a speeding rate also. It was not so hard, the metal came from junk that was in huge amount around the area. Before a week had passed by there were enough guns and ammunition for each of the person living in the mall.

The next focus was on the defence and intelligence. The enemy was the Legion, an unknown faction that was probably wreaking havoc in the west. Unfortunately it was not much to say about them. The few traders that actually knew something about them was to afraid to say something. Some other show sympathise with the Legion. The traders told about the security in Legion controlled areas and that they saved tons of caps on hiring mercenaries to protect the caravans. It seemed like the Legion showed a zero tolerance for anything that was not approved by their leader. A man called Cesar. Elder Lyons was afraid of the unknown threat and establised the Second link. A group that was going too be the Mall intelligence and espionage agency. He assigned Paladin Novac as head of the organization and he put up shop in the building adjacent to the GNR.

TLW was now heading in that direction. It had gone one week since they moved in and he wanted to see what Novac had did with the place. The first assignment was to grant clearance to those who were important enough. Becides Novac himself, only Elder Lyons and TLW had full access to everything. The rest operated on need to know basis. When TLW crossed the square he once fought a Behemonth at, he thoughts went with the two steels that had perished in that battle. Now everything was different. The wall that was being built not long ago gave a shadow over the place and made it colder and darker than it had to be. The ruins had been demolished a long time ago, and there was now a working fountain with fresh water and new build benches at the place. There were talk about making a statue there but nothing had happend since that.

The Second Link headquarters had also been upgraded the last couple of weeks. TLW remembered the building, run down, destroyed with holes everywhere. Not much different from all the other buildings, but someone had given this place priority. The workforce of the Mall had done a great job on the building. The facade actually looked new and fresh. Thanks too the Pit they also received windows, building materials and paint. The doors were built from Timber from the trees at the Oasis. Using wood was still a no no, but since the spores of Howard has spread around the wasteland, new vegetation had sprung. In two-three years time there actually would be a forest some places around, and therefore a quota of wood could be used for prioritized work, like this.

TLW went inside the lobby. There some workers were busy with installing some Mark Turrets on the ceiling and making a reception at the front desk. There were also some steels standing on each side of the door. Security was clearly an issue here.  
"There you are, welcome to Second Link HQ" a voice coming from above said. It was Novac himself. The fifteen year old veteran with greyish hair and caucasian skin was clearly the best and only candidate for the job. But he had a hell of a task infront of him. Creating an intel agency was a hard job, especially when the skills needed was very limited. Novac went down the stairs behind the reception too greet TLW.  
"Thanks for coming. As you can see we are soon done with the final preparation before we are fully operative." Novac said. First now TLW saw that some technicans was working with some kind of sluice at the entrance.  
"We raided the presidential metro you used to get to the enclave base. We found programs and protocols to implement a ID card system. In some days time no one can get trough without the right ID."  
TLW was impressed, this was something he had not thought about when he was fighting hords of ghouls and robots in the underground.  
" You want the tour?" Novac asked. TLW was courious on what was being done. TLW was out of the loop in the preparations stage and had been busy scouting and planing a defence. Estimates showed that The Legion needed atleast 10.000 soldiers to manage an effective campaign, and for each day that went The Mall got stronger and stronger. So the conclusion was that the Legion needed a divide and conquer tactic to achieve sucess. That was worrisome because the Legion had to come to the same conclusion. The odds were that there were spies inside the Mall already. But so far no real damage had been done, and Sarah Lyons had been almost an inquistion in hunting Frumentari.

Novac guided him down in the basement, where TLW got a shock when he saw what was going on there. Several rows of computers were lined up and wired together in some kind of network. In half of them there were people sitting and writing. "I recruited some of the best best scouts, both from Steels and the ordinary army. Here they type in every report the scouts come with, it goes into a digital archive that can be accessed by our analyst. Everything we know about our enemies and friends gets logged here." They moved out from the basement and into the offices of the first floor. Here there were almost no activites except to or three analysts that were going around carrying stuff.  
"Here is our offices where only person that i personally approve and Elder Lyons agrees works. They job is to read through the reports and update the dossier about our enemies." Novac stopped for a second. "I know what you think, but so far there  
are six people working here and they have been Steels since they were born. All of them recruited from the Scribes. If they cant be trusted no one can." The started walking again. TLW noticed that the workers here was actually dressed casually and not wearing guns. Novac informed him that guns were not allowed for different reasons. First of all no one could shoot the computers or valuable personnel. Second of all no one could threaten themself to some of the dossiers.

The second floor were the reason that they were next to Galaxy news radio. It was clear that they used the same dish to intercept frequencies. TLW had noticed that the dish he almost died replacing had been removed and a new bigger one had taken it place. Novac said that they easily could hear The commonwealth radio transmission and it went far enough too the fabled Mississippi river. The room on the second floor was basically a gigantic listening station. Three people had headphones on and was busy writing things down on a notepad. Novac went to a gigantic monitor at the end of the room.  
"This is our beauty. Used by the old goverment it notifices us everytime there is activity on a frequency. If the transmission is encrypted it tries decode it with a special logarithm that one of our best engineers implemented. Unfortunately its unreliable when it comes to how long it takes. The fastest has been 3 seconds, but it also took once five minutes to crack a frequency look. Still, its the best asset we have." Novac smiled while he polished the monitor.  
"Has it been useful so far.?" TLW asked.  
"Kidding me? It has already given us the whole hierachy of the Commonwealth. Did you know that the one ruling the place is.." Novac was interrupted by one of the listener.  
"Sir, we got some live feed from Vault 101, they are discussing something about their overseer."  
Novac turned around and looked at TLW, he knew his origins. "Do you wanna listen in?" Novac asked.  
"No, its not part of my life anymore." TLW said. Novac gave an understanding nood and said to the listener to write it in the report, he would read it later. They continued the tour.  
Third floor was barracks and a cafeteria. Some workers was still not done with the bathrooms. They used some mold and tiles to make it better and TLW had to admit that it would be a luxury to work here. How many resources had actually Elder Lyons approved for this?  
The cafeteria was good as done. That was when TLW saw a familiar face behind the counter. The curly blond hair and the cute face was familiar from Megaton. It was Jenny Stahl, and she like many else in the Wasteland had decided to move inside the safe walls of The Mall.  
"Hi, long time no see" she said when she meet TLW.  
"Suprised to see you here. Thought you worked at the Brass Lantern?" TLW answered.  
"No, after all the Brahim and traders passing by its difficult to keep the profit up, after a security check i was offered a job here. It gives me caps and a place too sleep and only have to cook and serve the food, not hunt it."  
"What about your brothers?" TLW asked.  
"Andy opened a bar in Tennpenny Towers and Leo voluntarily joined the army. I see them time too time." Jenny smiled, TLW did not ask about Leos Jet problem, but if he was under Reillys command she probably had him quarantined until he went cold turkey and beyond. Reilly did not accept junkies serving, so he had to be rid of the habit if he was in the army.

TLW said goodbye too Jenny after some minutes of chit-chat and walked to the end of the building where Novac had his office. TLW had to choke a laugh when he saw it. It was something extragavanza. It was actually a carpet floor, several nice paintings that had to come from some museums and a big wodden table that had been polished. It looked like a presidents office. Novac smiled when he saw TLW reaction.  
"I know what you are thinking, but Second link needs to be taken seriously and when in the future the boss is talking to a general, foreign dignitaries and so on it has too look profesional."  
TLW could not disagree with that. Novac sat down behind his desk and TLW on the other side. They talked for some minutes before they went into the topics off spies.  
" I have to admit we have a problem there. Not only to train people to be undercover but to actually start a network of intelligence."  
" Have you started training recruits?" TLW asked  
"No, we haven't. The scribes at Arlington are going through all available material about the subjects, but its a long process. Our expertice in this field is..limited. After all, the chances of sucess inflitrating super mutants were limited and The Enclave was a xenophobic organisation that recruited from birth. Our information comes from scouts and radio listening solely, and it will be limited how long effective it is."  
TLW could not disagree with that. Right now the radio tapping was a gold mine since no one knew about the Mall. But how long would that last?  
"So what do we know?" TLW asked.  
Novac stood up and went to an old map of the Continental US. The area of The Mall was cirkled in red. All at the other end was the letter NCR? written. Also the area of The Commonwealth was circled. "We know more about the Commonwealth then problably they know, but they are not a threat at all and have no ambition to threaten us according to hours of radio-chat." He pointed at the west coast. "What i have heard is a name called NCR. I believe its a country, a large one, that have meet The Legion several times." Novac then went to his drawer and took out a dossier that was marked Legion.  
"Now, this is were thing is getting interesting." He throwed the dossier to TLW who opened it and saw several machine written sheets of information. He took a look at it and turned horrified up.  
" It's fit Sarahs description of them, but if what we have found out is true, the treat is way bigger than we thought. The Legion controls an area that splits the continent in half. They are slavers, ruthless and shows no mercy. We believe that numbers are several times bigger than we thought and atleast 88 tribes have been integrated into the Legion."  
TLW continued looking in the dossier. "Who is Cesaer?"  
"We dont know if its pronouced or spelled right, but their leader is a man called Ceaser. He is almighty and the sole leader of the organization. He has ambition of leading the world under his rule, and he is on a good way doing it. We dont know anything more. The Followers of the Apocalypse says that Ceasar was one of them once, but they dont know more."  
"Oh my god, this worse than The Enclave?" TLW said slowly.  
"Perhaps, the strange thing is that the word New Vegas is mentioned often with the word Legion."  
TLW had heard about Las Vegas, a city of sin, was New Vegas the same concept?  
"Sound like an location."  
"I agree, that means that New Vegas is either a target or a main city of the Legion."  
Their conversation were interupted by somebody knocking on the door. Novac shouted that whoever was there could come in.  
It was one of the listeners, he said it was urgent and gave Novac a handwritten note.  
"Are you sure about this?"  
"Two different sightseeing within an hour, they are definatly there."  
Novac looked at the map and then saw with cold eyes on TLW.  
"Two different caravans from same company communicates through local ham radios. They have sent ut an warning no too the take the Talarahamasse road at Point Green. A huge army, atleast 10.000 strong is marching on that road. All dressed in red carrying a red banner with a bull." Novac studied the map. "That puts them here." He pointed at a desert place far a distance from from The Mall. But it was not far away from The pit.  
" They are going for the Pit." TLW said Divide and Conquer. If they take control of the The Pit, the mall would loose all of the building and construction materials they needed to maintain the defence.  
"How far away are they?"  
"Moving a army of 10.000 slows them down, but not more than two weeks time before they are knocking on the gates."  
It did not take long before TLW was running down the streets on his way to the Citadel. They could not let the Pit fall.


	12. The price of war

The mood in the war-room at the Citadel was bad too say it atleast. For Elder Lyons and his daughter it was depressing. For TLW and Reilly who represented the ordinary army it was worse. They had realised that they had done exactly the same mistake as many of the former empires before the war had did. They had overstreched their territory. When they figured their cencus they realised they had not enough manpower to start a campaign against a 10.000 soldier strong army. If they garrisoned both the Mall and some other settlements to the minimun they could march around 1000 men to the Pit. The problem was not defending the Mall. It was a fortress that could repeal a size of twice the army that were now marching against the Pit. But the Mall was protected by a minimum 4 meter high wall that need tons of well placed dynamite just to make a scratch or dent in it. And the one trying to do it would be shot down by one of the many guards standing at the guard towers with sniper rifles. No, the problem was to actually move and command an army. The Pit was a friendly settlement after the events the TLW had gone trough and made a slave named Wernher in charge. But it was an industry settlement with only enough security to provide a form of stability, and not enough too stop an army of that size. Too march 1000 men into an unknown city with weak defence and a ruthless enemy would be fatal.  
So what could they do?

First of all they thought about their advantages. They had air superiority. The Vertibirds could bomb them, but then again the enemy forces could have ground too air missiles at their disposal. It was not unlikely if they controlled the main of the midwest areas. What about the Steels?  
Elder Lyons rebuffed that immediately. The trained knights now counted 80 people and they did not have more Power armors left. They were needed and could not be a force of their own. If the little of intelligence that they had picked up was true, this was an army capable of destroying the Brotherhood of Steel easily. It was a tricky situation.  
" We need to see the reality here. The Pit is not a part of our influence sphere and even though its industrial capabilites is important, its not lifethreatning. With time we can replace their production capablilites." One of the scribes said.  
"So we let the Pit fall, and then what? We have a bastion of the Legion at our doorstep. Just waiting for rest of their army so 30.000 could march against our walls." Sarah Lyons made a vital point in the discussion.  
"But how can we be sure that they will even allow our forces to garrison there. You know after the Scourge." It was Reilly that asked the question about the subject no one would talk about.  
The scourge was the term for the brotherhood military operation several years ago that almost wiped out the entire population of The Pit. Many of the intiaties was taken from there and trained up in the Citadel.  
"Its a different time now. Wehrner is in charge now and he has managed to put up a good production ratio and improved the quality of life there." TLW defended Lyons.  
"So i heard. They are not called slaves now but season workers and the cure for the plauge has wiped it out. But still a high ratio of workers die working there and Werhner have problems with maintaing order. And not to mention that the man who established order there, Ishamel was one of your guys." Silence came over the room.  
"And what about the guns you sold and the people you trained up here the last year. Was that part of the deal? Making sure that Wernher holds on his city?" The question from Reilly was hard hitting but true.  
The Mall had gone trough many compromises to start traiding with The Pit. First of all they needed stability. So while Wehrners personal guards were being trained at the Mall with Reilly, both ordinary soldiers and Steels guarded the area. After what TLW heard they also eridicated some gangs and the mutants. In the future a water pipe between the two cities would be build, but for now they recieved huge amount of water and food i exchange for building materials.  
"Listen up Reilly, Wernher is an inteligent man, he knows whats on stake and he would not let his city fall. I suggest we send an envoy there too let him understand the seriousness of the situation." Lyons turned around his head against TLW.  
" I need you too go there, and take with you Reilly, some soldiers and an engineer there."  
"Why an engineer?"  
"Because we need to know the status of their fortifications and see what we could do."  
TLW had to agree on this. The key to sucess was to avoid open combat. They needed to fatigue the enemies by making a strong defence. Not more than a hour later the Vertibird took off in direction west. Inside it were Reilly, an engineer named Ferell and three Steels that acted like security. And of course TLW who would again visit the place he promised himself he would never return too. He took a deep breath and leaned back on the seat. It was an hour and a half with top speed so he could afford little bit rest. He sat down gently and feel asleep. Just to discover that Reilly pocked him a second later. They had landed.

It was a different Pitt that meet him. Still it was dirty and dark, but something had changed. The open place the Vertibird had landed on was placed in the downtown area. But it has also changed. The former slaves went around the area and watched with curiosity the new arrivals. They also had used the building materials to improve their buildings, but it was not done with the same degree of coordination and effort as at the Mall. There were different colors and many places quick solutions had been implemented. Infront of them two armed men was waiting. Both wearing the R91 assault rifle. But they did not wear the same uniform. One had an improved raider armor on him, while the other one was just wearing a caravan outfit but had a helmet and googles on him.  
"Are you the company from The Mall?" one of them asked.  
"Thats correct" Reilly spoke and made herself the spokesperson of the group.  
"Then please follow us, Mister Wernher and Miss Midea is waiting for you at Haven."  
"Then lead the way." TLW smiled.

They went past Uptown that was now in a different shape. Still the more wealthy of the citizen lived here, but it was no longer an exclusive place for slave masters. The guards at the entrance of the Haven immediately moved aside when they saw the entourage and opened the doors. The first thing that TLW noticed were that the awful statue of the straw man was removed, and therefore also the tradition of burning the man inside. Good, things were looking better now. The engineer named Ferrell looked at everything with a curiosity that only engineers had. They went up the steps into the third floor and the central room that were used for meetings. TLW noticed them both from distance. The redish hair and the eyepatch and his diry face. It was Wernher. And besides him were an middle-aged woman that looked exactly like thousand other womans. Midea. They noticed TLW at the same time and pleasantries and introductions were quickly done. Then they sat down. Ferrell was actually the first one to talk.  
"Excuse me, but if i could look at the fortificiations here soon, the quicker i would be done."  
"Sure thing. Carl, can you make sure that this fellow gets to take a look at our perimeter?" Wernher poitned at one of the guards that quickly nooded and soon both he and Ferrell was gone from the room. It was just Reilly and TLW. The steels had been with the Vertibird, fearing more for its safety than the TLW and his groups.

"So, hows life treating you?" TLW asked to start the conversation.  
" Good, we had a rough patch after the uprising. But thanks to the help from the Mall we have enough manpower to keep some form of society here. We have operational capacity at about 75%, but we definatly lack the manpower too maintain all the factories." Wernher offered them some wine, both Reilly and TLW thanked no to it.  
"What about the trade. Except the Mall. how many other costumers do you have?" TLW asked again, making sure too remeber the answer for Second Link.  
"Well, we have some private clients. You know the ones that only have a ruin and a few mercenaries to create a settlement here and there. But since you guys starting pacifing the area almost all of the products goes too the capital Wasteland."  
" And Marie?" TLW realised that just after asking the question that it was a sensitive topic. It was Midea that started the conversation.  
"She grows for each day. Now that we have a cure for the disease, she can grow up as a normal girl." Midea said with a distain in her voice. TLW knew that Midea did not care about the girl since she was the offspring of her slavemaster, but she was also an innocent baby. TLW had killed both her mom and dad in self-defence and felt some remorse. Thats why he had brought with him some toys. "I brought her some things that she.."  
"She is not here." Midea interrupted TLW sentence.  
"She was adopted by a child less couple in the downtown area and she lives with them now."  
TLW decided to change the topic before things got more weird. It was Reilly that saved him and let the discussion to something more interesting.  
"So Wernher, how does it go with the men i trained up? Happy?"  
"Oh yes. They operate efficient and good. There has been no major incident for 6 months now. I was actually hoping to talk too you guys about training more men so i can meet the challenges that will come when it comes to security."  
" About that." TLW interupted.  
" Yes i know about them. The ones you called Legion right. An envoy of them has stayed here since yesterday:" Wernher finished his glass of wine. TLW almost spitted out his glass of water.  
" Can you bring the envoy from the legion here?" Wernher asked the other security guard who followed order.  
"You cant be serious. There are over 10.000 of them marching this way now." TLW looked Wernher in the eye.  
"Well, are you sure about that. They said that they have about 1000 men, but was only for securing a new settlements in the area. Too make sure that they were not attacked by some raiders.  
"Thats bullshit." Reilly shouted.  
"You know i have the greatest respect for you" Wernher refered to TLW, "but the Brotherhood and the affiliates should not talk lightly about threats too the Pit. May i reminder that Ashtur was one of your guys and the Pit slaves would maybe be free if it had not been for your actions?"  
"First of all, i am not a brotherhood of steel and my affiliation is for the thousands of people now living in safety at the Capital wasteland. Second of all, The Pitt was a breeding ground for all kind of human waste before, and for the third the Legion i as grusome organization that will put you all back in the chains you recently broke out off." Reilly stood up and went out of the room. "I need some air." she said while going out of the room.  
"She is spicy that one" Wernher said with a smile.  
"She is just concerend, if you fall the road is open to the Mall."  
" i can understand your concern, but you have to remember the sentiment against the Brotherhood is still strong. People are stilling saying to me that i should pressure The Mall to give back what Elder Lyons stoleunder The scrouge."  
"And what would that be?" TLW asked.  
"I have no idea, it was before my time and i never ask. It really pisses off the older generation here."  
The discussion was ended when the door into the room was opened. And in came the representative for the Legion.

A well dressed man dressed in pre-war buisness clothes. He was nothing like TLW had imagined. But then again TLW had no idea what they looked like. Wernher stood up and greeted the clean, well shaved man.  
"Ahh, how are you the room Karl, sleept well?" Wernher asked while shaking the Dark skinned man.  
"Thank you Wernher, i slept like a baby." Karl said smiling back.  
"You have to meet someone Karl, this is the guy they called The Lone Wanderer. The hero of Wasteland."  
"You are the famous man we hear words from all the way back in Flagstaff." Karl stretched out his arm. TLW did not greet him back. But he would remember the name Flagstaff.  
An awkward situation was quickly solved with Midea offering some wine, wich Karl gratefully accepted.  
"So Wernher, have you thought about our proposal yet?" Karl took a sip off the wine.  
"What offer?" did the TLW ask.  
They ignored him.  
"Yes i have Karl, but the thought of having a bastion of Legion soldier stationed in the Pit is not something we can take lightly."  
"Its for the protection of the goods we will be paying for." Karl replied.  
"Are you fucking kiddin me?" TLW said.  
"Are you letting those bastards into your city voluntary?" TLW was shocked. "They are nothing but slavers and brutes wanting to bend the world to their will."  
"Thats not a nice thing too say. I dont share your view on our organization. The Legion is a stability factor that has ensured peace and prosperity. Our intention is nothing but pure." Karl had finished his glass of wine.  
"I have people that has been enslaved that proves different." TLW said with a cold voice. Wernher listen to the conversation.  
" I dont have to listen to these false accusations. I will talk to you when this nuisance has gone." Karl stood up and went out off the room.  
"You just make friends with everyone, dont you?" Wernher said.  
"Enough of the bullshit! Why are they here?"  
" They are like you expanding into the area. For around four months ago our caravans reported of increasing sights of red dressed soldiers. At the same time the reports of increasing caravans attacks drop to almost zero. The wasteland have never been more safe."  
"At the expense of freedom and liberty. Do you know they treat women as cattle and kill everyone that shows signs of weakness."  
"Have you seen this yourself?" Midea asked.  
" No but Sarah Lyons was captured and was herself a slave." TLW finished his water. Wernher had never meet Sarah Lyons, but he knew well about her reputation. It surely affected him. Midea was also confused. As a woman and a former slave she would die before losing her freedom.  
"We need to discuss this more with Karl, can we offer a bed for the night for you and your companion while we sort this mess out?"  
TLW gladly accepted the offer. It was starting to be night and he felt tired. They agreed to meet again tomorrow after Wernher had a discussion with Karl.

Later that night TLW was sitting in his room. It was not bad, but it was not high quality. The room had been cleaned and new furniture was put in, but the essence of the decay that had been there the last 200 years was still in the wall. Anyhow, clean water, a couple of clean bed sheets and TLW was a happy man. He enjoyed the Brahim steak. It was after clean water the biggest export of the The Mall alone. No wonder, it was a taste of the old world and luxury. The vertibird had been placed under continuous guard, The four Steels was going in patrol two and two and there were also some guards that Wernher had assigned to the task. TLW feared that the Legion would sabotage it. It knocked on the door. Ferrell was going in at the same time.  
"So, how is the place?" asked TLW.  
"Both bad and good news. Which one you want first.?"  
"Bad please."  
" There is no secure defence areas. This place was designed to keep prisoner inside not keeping people outside. Most of the security measures has been demolished since. The only thing is the toll-booth gate with three soldiers standing guard." Ferrell looked into his notes while he talked.  
"And the good news?"  
" This place has excellent natural defences." Ferrell draw a very general map of The Pit.  
"The area is guarded by a river and the only good access from east is the main bridge. And to get too that you need to cross the hinders of the trainyard. No army could keep a good order while marching through that terrain. The bad news there it also keeps us from having a good overview. But if we construct two or three guardtowers we have an excellent point of view. So if we create a rude connected wall through the west side, it will defiantly make the enemy day worse. The key is the bridge. They need too cross it and The Pit need to keep their connection to their western trade routes. I am not a tactician, but i think they will agree blowing up the bridge is the final solution."  
"So what do you suggest." TLW asked while agreeing in his head with Ferrell. The Pit needed the bridge.  
" First of all, we need to build the guard towers. First priority. They need to be placed with direct overview to the Trainyard. Then we need to reinforce the gate at the bridge. Right now it will only take ten men minutes to break the weak gate and storm in. Replacing it with a double gate or reinforce it, and of course creating the plateu where troops can attack the attackers. The last priority is to fill in the holes around the river. Right now its just rubble here and there with no overview structure. But that could take some time."  
"How long?" TLW asked.  
"Weeks atleast." Ferrell answered.  
"Then we need to start immediately. I will talk to Wernher first thing tomorrow. But before that." TLW could not say anything more before he noticed it. From the window he saw the red dot.  
"Get down!" TLW screamed before jumping of the chair. But it was too late for Ferrell. His chest exploded in a red mist and fell down. TLW did not need to confirm the kill. Ferrell was dead before hitting the ground. Two more bullets penetrated the room and almost hit TLW. He had to hide behind the sofa and pray the bullets did not penetrate it.  
At the same time the door sprung up. A man dressed in black entered the room and started look for something. TLW heart rate increased and he went into a form for shock. Time stopped. TLW was not armed and the assiliant had a Scoped 44 magnum. If it hit TLW he was done. Fortunately for TLW the attacker had not seen him yet. He was not there too kill him, he was there to confirm the sniper kill. The attacker noticed Ferrells dead body and went slowly to check him out. TLW took the advantage of this and jumped on the attacker. He quickly calculated his chances. If he hit the attacker in the head there was a 72 procent to give a critical hit, he had to take it. With full strength he punched the attacker in the head. It was the hardest punch he had ever given and he felt someone jaws broke. The attacker body went into shock of the sudden attack and TLW used the opportunity to grab him in the collar. If TLW understood the sniper correctly the plan would work. He quickly turned the back of the attacker against the window and not a second latter the attackers back exploded. TLW literally saw the life of the attacker leave through the eyes as they rolled backover. Now was the chance. He used the body as a shield while he backstepped quickly out of the room and into corridor. There was another shoot from the desperate sniper, but it missed. TLW dropped the body and throw himself to the side of the door. He was safe. A short time later a guard from The pit arrived with his weapon ready. He must have heard the noise.  
"Stay away. Tell them there is a sniper on the eastern opposide building. Third or foruth floor. Extreme caution." TLW screamed. The guard understood the order and disapeared again. TLW waited for 10 minutes at the same place before the Steels bodyguards arrived in full power armor and six Pit guards. They went and checked the corridor and the room before one of them cleared the area. "I think we are safe. We have cleared the opposite building, no trace of the sniper. We are sweeping the secondary area" one of the Steels said.  
"What about Reilly?" TLW asked.  
"She is safe and a leading the second swipe team." the Steels said. Of course she was TLW said while standing up and letting the heart rate decrease. He for the first time took a look at his assailant. The dead man did not look different than an ordinary citizen of the wasteland. But TLW knew already it had to be a legion assassin.  
He then looked at the body of Ferrell who someone had the curtesy of covering with the bedsheets. So young. He represented the generation who would rebuild the world, and now he was gone. The legion would pay.


	13. Preparation for war

TLW did not have to time to feel sorrow for Ferrell. Not in this world. The positive is that Ferrell would get a grave and a funeral that people would attend. That was a luxury the last two hundred years had not seen much off.. Right now it was in the middle of the night, but no one had sleept. After the assassination attempt TLW hit the radio at the vertibird and talked with the Citadel for one hour. The next thing he did was to talk to Wernher, who literally feel on his knees in sorrow. He first proclamied about his innocence from the Legion, and TLW believed him. Then he talked about his discussion with Karl, who loosed his temper and escaped from The pit. But before he left he wanted to kill the man that had broken the deal. He failed. So now there were no more to say. Wernher knew the situation and he knew that the full cooperation was needed should the way of life in the Pit survive.

The plan was simple, they had two weeks to create a defence against the enemies. The full workforce of the Mall was being deployed to the Pit and within 12 hours they would start working with the Pit on Ferrells last work. But first the best scouts were going to be deployed in the area. The hope was that they could give exact information about their enemy. They were arriving in two hours since Lyons had said it was highest priority. Right behind them would the workers and a defence force arrive. Wernher on the other hand started the production on everything. Midea helped with schedules on shift that would secure full capability of the production. So what could TLW do? Nothing actually. He had to wait, the wheels was spinning and for the first time in a long time it was out of his control to do anything. Reilly had even thold him to get some sleep. He decided to take up the over. He went back too Haven where his room had been moved. The windows had been sealed by bricks and cement and there were no view. But the bed looked clean. Outside two of the Steels were stationed as guards for him. They just nooded when he walked passed them and said to him "Sleep well."  
"Wake me up when the first vertibird arrives." TLW said.  
Sorry sir, but Reilly said that you will be sleeping until you wake up, and that no one should disturb you."  
"So you are saying that you will not do as i say when it comes to things about me?" TLW asked.  
"You are the wasteland hero and a living legend, but that does not change the fact that i am much more afraid of her than you." The steel said.  
Somehow TLW could see that and ended the discussion. He closed the door and drank the whole bottle of Aqua Pura before taking off his clothes and took a quick wash with the other bottle. He then laid down on the bed and feel asleep before ten second was gone.

He waked up with afraid. He could see the sunlight between some cracks of the bricks, how long was i gone. He quickle stood up, took on his clothes and went outside. One of the steels were still there.  
"Good morning sir" he said through his intercom, making the voice rusty.  
"How long was i asleep."  
"Around 12 hours sir" The steel said, knowing that the question would come.  
12 hours! holy shit. That was a long time, what had happened outside. He walked down the stairs and outside. Where he got a shock.  
The place was bustling with activity. It was like seeing the Mall when they worked with the the perimeter.  
Workers were going from one place to another, with clear objectives. Another Vertibird landed and he saw another one in the distance, disapearing into the horizon back too The mall. The downtown area was now a camp with many tents being raised. Already the fundament of the towers was being put in place already. Not far away some engineers from the Brotherhood was going through the bridge, noting and studying the area. The bridge was the key here and to destroy would have been the last resort, when everything else failed. Suddenly he feld somebody touching his shoulder.  
"Hi soldier" the voice said, the voice of Sarah Lyons.  
"Hi, what are you doing here?" TLW asked somewhat suprised. After her arrival back to The Mall she had used her time to build up her strength. The imprisonment at the Legion destroyed her, and the stimpack could only be used so many times before it was a danger of addiction  
"I am going to do some recon in the area." She said with a low voice, like she did not want to say it. First now TLW noticed that she was dressed and equipped for a long trip.  
"Are you sure, the Legion is days away and remember last time." TLW said.  
"Dont worry, i know exactly what to do. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me."  
"Æh, what.?"  
"It was just something i saw on a pre-war poster, and i liked it. I was under a quote from an pre-war artist called Taylor Swift. From the looks of the poster and the text i found on a hologram i think she was a lesbian. She really did not like men atleast: Anyways, i need to be going to avoid the first scouts. I talk too you later." And with that Lyons was gone. Before even TLW could say something. He watched her cross the bridge, before she was lost behind a hill. Strange he thought and started focusing his mind on the important things again.

TLW used most of the days keeping track of the things that were happening. The guard towers would be done in two days. Since the material came directly from The Pitt, the production time was non existent. The problem was now the soldiers. Even though they had atleast 200 combat trained soldiers, only two were qualified as a sharpshooter. That was a huge setback. They had earlier that day picked up 10 of the most promising soldiers and started a crash course. A two week practice would not make somebody good, but it will be noticable improvement. The second task was the gate. Right now they were no gates at the bridge. There had to be a 24 hour period where they had no gates because the foundations had be laid and the cement had to dry. This was a crucial moment. But fortunately none of the scouts had reported any sights of the Legion army.

The last point of the day was the report from the Second link liason. TLW remebered him as one of the scribes when he first was at the Citadel, but he could not for the life remember the name. He, Reilly and Wernher heard the report.  
" So far, the news is spare. The legion does not use the broadwave in a big degree. But thanks to our merchant we have some unverified information from the west. But the the increased traffic of scavengers and people coming from there we believe its accurate. The legion has apparently attacked, and burned down the city of Ronto."  
Silence came so people could digest the news. TLW had heard the name before. Ashur had mentioned once, and called it a mighty military power. If the city had been burned it meant that the Legion had some formidable firepower.  
" We believe that the men were killed, the woman taken as slaves and the city burned. The real news is that a known merchant here recognized some of them. It seems that the mystery of where the Talon company and the rest of the slavers went has been solves."  
"You mean..:" TLW started the sentence.  
"I mean that this has been planned since maybe the day we established order in the Capital Wasteland. Our enemies has joined forces just to get rid of us."  
"How can they do that, The legion will never accept either Talon or the slavers way of living."  
"They dont know that." said TLW slowly.  
The train of thought was suddenly interrupted by a gun shot, a shot from a powerful sniper rifle. That was odd, they were practicing about 10 minutes away from here with the vertibird to avoid collateral damage. TLW stood up, excused himself and went out from the tent they were sitting in. He immediatly heard the sentry guard standing at the open gate.  
" Man down, half a click away." He yelled. Some soldiers suddenly started to deploy to retrieve the now incapacitated suspect.." TLW walked to the sentry.  
" Do you shoot everyone that you spot in the distance?" TLW asked.  
"No sir, but this guy was scouting, taking notes and tried not to be discovered. If i warned him he would disapeared before anyone could catch him. And dont worry, i hit him in the leg." The scout smiled while coking the rifle.  
Behind him the group started moving to the direction the scout pointed.

Five minutes later they came back, two of them dragging a man between them. The man was in pain, and the blood stain created a path into The Pitt. TLW looked at the men as he was dragged to the medic tent. Not because of human treatment but because a dead man could give no information. The man was a typically scout. Dessed light so he could move fast and make no noice. But his uniform was red with a easy breast plate. He had a cloth hood and black pants. TLW followed the group.  
"What was he carrying?" TLW asked.  
"Only this." one of the soldiers said and showed him a machete, something that looked like a spear and some strange silver coins. TLW looked at it. On the one side it stood MAGNVM CHASMA and showed the person. On the other side it stood CAESAR and DICTATOR with capital letters, and a side portret, most probably byt the CAEASAR. The currency of the Legion he wondered. He gave it back to the soldier and said to give it to the Second Link liason. Atleast they had some form of picture of the famous Caesar.  
TLW went in to the medic tent. The legion scout was held down by the soldiers at the shoulders and the arms while one of the doctors injected a stimpack and a med-x into his body.  
The scout objected "NO, its not allowed!" he screamed but moments later felt the effect of the morphine. The stimpak was a unique medication that could almost heal all of the body's minor wounds, but it was addicting. The whole process would take some minutes.

Half an hour later the prisoner of war (the first one ever they cought) was calm, but he had a look that symbolized anger and control. He was a typical person of the nuclear wasteland. Once a caucasian that after years of sand exposure and bad hygiene had a brownish skin. Thin as all people were and with some stubs that resembled a beard.  
"You are a captive and a prisoner here. State your name and rank." TLW commanded.  
The prisoner tried to spit at him but did not reach halfway. One of the soldiers smacked the prisoner in the face. TLW gave him a look that symbolised: dont do that again, we want him alive. The soldier took the message right away.  
"Listen. We know that you are the legion, and we know that your army is marching trough here. But we will not be an easy prey and we will win. We will destroy your armies and make sure that no one of your kind will ever place their foot here again. Now is the time too think about you allegiance. We do not kill prisoner if there is no reason to do it, and we do not torture if it is not vital, so please spare both yourself and us for the trouble. Tell us the important thing we need to know about The legion."  
The look at the prisoner was silent for a second before he again tried to spit on TLW. This time the soldiers just thigten the grip on the prisoner. TLW breathed heavily.  
"Doctor, i see that you have no patients yet. Can you please go too The haven and get me some coffee."  
The doctor realising what was going too happen just locked at TLW heavily and went out. The mall had adapted the the pre-war philosophy of using the Hippocratic oath on their doctors, and no doctor would accept what was going too happen now.

Two seconds after the doctor left and one of the guards was placed outside to stop anyone from entering TLW went to a operation table.  
" I lived my whole life in a vault, i never understood the cruelty of the world outside. But as i fought trough impossible odds, killed bad people and generally blowed things up i realised something." He took up a scalpel.  
" To achieve the good for people we need to inflict bad on those who only wants to destroy."  
TLW raised the scalpel and pushed it trough the left eye of the prisoner. One of the guards held the that eye open. The scalpel slowly went towards the eye apple.  
"Remember, you are in control, you can end it anytime."  
The prisoner stood silent, the scalpel went closer and closer. It was just a millimeter from the eye. TLW noticed that the prisoner did not react.  
TLW took back the scalpel and in one sudden move planted it right over the kneecap, it went at least 5 centimeter down. The prisoner started screaming but one of the guards effectively gagged him with a rag that was lying next to the bed. After some moments TLW dragged the scalpel out from the knee. The blood poured out from the wound.  
"Remember, that you are in control." TLW said, but realised he could not speak over the screams from the prisoners. It took some seconds before the screams went out and the pain was again bearable for the prisoner. In the meantime the guard had put some pressure on the wound so that he would not pass out.  
After some seconds TLW noticed that the prisoner again could control the pain. But the face was changing. The mental barrier was definitely broken. TLW remembered a lecture he once got from an Enclave officer while being captured at Raven Rock. Everyone breaks when it comes to torture. It only depends on the time. If you are mentally and physically withstand it for some time. But eventually you will break. But this prisoner was just trained too put up a brave face, not to withstand torture. This would not take long.  
After some seconds of silence where TLW gave the prisoner a chance to talk he realised that he again had to something that he really hated. This time he took up the forceps. "Please dont make me do this" TLW said with a low voice. The prisoner tried to muster all his strength. He was shaking and the sweat was running down his checks.  
"Please give me his little-finger" TLW said to one of the soldiers. The soldier took up the prisoners hand and with force stretched out his little finger. TLW put the the forceps around the finger. "Please, it can all end. TLW said slowly. He took a look at the soldiers around him. They were good guys but not experienced enough to digest these kind of things.  
The silence lasted for three second, but felt like an eternity. TLW counted inside himself. When he came to five he had to do it. Please, please he begged the prisoner mentally.  
No one talked.

The scream was so painful even trough the gag. TLW used a bottle of whisky to sterilize the wound and some bandage to stop the bleeding. The scout were crying now, and TLW actually felt pity for him. Then something happend. The prisoner were no longer screaming, he was mumbling. The solder removed the rag.  
"What...do...want...too...know." the prisoner mumbled.  
"Everything." TLW said.  
The next five minutes the scout talked about the size of the army, the position of their camp and that 5000 men had broken off the main army and marched through the commonwealth. After TLW was happy he nodded too the soldier. One of them went outside and came back with the doctor. TLW explained the medical situation without looking him in the eye. After some medication the prisoner feel asleep and one of the guards handcuffed him to the bedpost. Outside TLW gathered the solder who had been witness to the situation.  
"Is there anyone who disagreed with my methods there. Speak, you will not get reprimanded."  
No one talked.

The days went by quickly from then. Second link got more and more reports every day that matched the information the prisoner gave them. But unfortunately for the analysts back at The Mall, two words gave no meaning. Even the prisoner asked for death when he asked about the mening of the two words. TLW made a decision not to torture him again. It was difficult once. But the two words gave so much fear that even the informants the Second Link had around the wasteland dared not to say anything. The words burned into TLW memories as the day went by.  
_Malpais Diabolus._

The days went by quickly now. The work-force did some impressive improvements over the days, and it seemed that they would be done with all the prioritized assignment. The Guard towers were up and running and a enforced gate was put in place. It was at least 10 centimeters thicker than the last one and would handle grenades with ease. It also had barbed wire at the top, in case the legion managed to place a foothold on the bridge. After what the prisoner had said, TLW understood the tradition in the legions army. They would use the masses of the fresh recruit to tire ut the enemy before the veterans came and whipped the rest of them out. It was a brutal but efficient tactic. But somehow they had to modernise it according to the terrain. The train wrecks at the other side of the bridge had to be removed also, since it hampered the vision of the snipers and the sentries. This was a painful and nerve wrecking task since the workforce always looked up on the hills too look for enemies. It was when that was done the reports from the scouts become more and more frequent. They were not far away now.

"Fresh new from the quartermaster at the Citadel" said the Steels with his metallic voice. Reilly, Wernher, TLW and a dozen of the high ranking officers stood in a half circle around the telt. The night had start to show up and many wanted a night sleep, but a Vertibird had arrived and announced something breaking new.  
"What is it, an ordinary landmine?" Reilly asked while looking at the round plates. TLW remembered them after researching for the Wasteland survival guide. He got almost killed, but according to the reports it had saved many lives. It made it worth it somehow. "No ordinary landmine" said the Steel.  
"This is landmine with a radio receiver." he said without the big entusiasm from the crowd. The steel tried again.  
"Ok, What is the biggest problem with deploying landmines?" he asked.  
"That it does not see the difference between friend and enemy." one of the officers said.  
"Correct. This one wil. It is possible to create mines with receivers that only blows up when a signal is not sent to it. But its to expensive and complicated to equip all friends with a radio receiver. Therefore we have established a detonator on them instead. With a push off a button they will activate. This has many advantages. Example we can lure a whole platoon into a minefield before we activate them, but if we decide to counter-attack we could also just turn them off, making it safe for our troops. I have with me around 500 off them, and we can get more tomorrow."  
TLW liked them and ordered the soldiers to place them around the area trough the night. When the morning came they had all been deployed. And in TLW hands was the activator button.

After six hours of sleep TLW looked at the barricades around the Pitt. He had to admit to himself that they did lot better than expected. Everything that needed to be done was done. The only negative aspect were the sharpshooters. The report was that their progress was not meeting the minimum standard. Still they were better than the average soldier. They had to gamle on them, at least they saw the difference between friend and fore. At the downtown open area the sergeants drilled the soldiers. The one regiment consisted of 6 rows with ten soldiers on each line. They were repeating weapons drill, and TLW admitted it looked cool the times all of them hit the rhythm of the drill. Reilly had voiced some concern that the there were not enough soldiers if the full force of the legion attacked. The ratio 1:20 were a concern. The Mall sent 200 soldier more. But then the security around the Capital Wasteland was stretched to a minimum and it was a huge security concern. Now they went trough their position again. Soldiers were going to be placed around the wall on the barricades. Unfortunately the ordinary assault rifle range was limited, and it would be difficult to hit something from across the river. But an attack trough the bridge would be a bloodbath. No matter what, it could not be taken without heavily casualties. The problem was that The Legion did not care about casualties and they could definitely afford some loses.

Around two hours later something happend. The traffic started to increase from the east. Scavengers, merchant and ordinary citizens came in bigger and bigger numbers. All of them told the same. That the enemy was right behind. But it also gave a new problem. The refugees could be spies, a trojan horse. And The Pitt could not use their forces on controlling the masses. They had to remove them. After a quick discussion they agreed to start sending them to Arefu. The city had been abandoned at the foundation of The Mall but i worked perfect as a refugee camp. The vertibirds started shipping them while the reserve work force at The Mall started with some improvised renovation. The unfortunate was that they had to hire some mercenaries that operated in the east to hold control. They even had to pick them up with the vertibird if they were too arrive in time.

The next day it was work, at some times more people than they were removing arrived. But when the night arrived it started to diminish. TLW looked when the Vertibird ascended again in the pitch black.  
"Only one trip left" he said to Reilly who stood next too him. The flow of refugees had stopped, that meant that the enemy could not be far away. TLW looked at the last eight that waited next to the improvised vertipad. Half an hour later it arrived and decended slowly. The guard standing next to them explained the procedure and starting loading them into the vertibird. Two minutes later all the baggage and people was inside the metal machine. The guard placed himself infront of the cockpit and gave a thumb up. The pilot started ascending the bird and turned it east.  
Then TLW saw it. Something cutting through the air. It was a rocket.  
It hit the Vertibird and a huge explosion lighted up the Pitt. The vertibird went down in flames. Fortunately the salvage fell down into the river where the water killed the flames. TLW ran to the barricades and started looking around.

From the hills he could just see shadow standing at the hills. Then one more, then one more. Until the whole horizon was filled with shadow figures. The Legion had finally arrived.


	14. The battle and new beginning

_Authors note: Hi, if you are reading this you have stumbled upon my fanfiction. Thanks! I will just remark that this story is an excellent practice i do before i write my thesis. I am not the best english writer and the chapters are often written and published without the biggest of rewriting and correction. So i really appricate if you as a reader does not understand some of the sentences in the story and come with constructive criticsm. Thanks in advance and i hope you enjoy reading it as much as i am writing._

The alarm went off immediately. Soldier who were sleeping woke up, put on their armors and grabbed their rifles. The one on duty went into the drill they had practiced the last days. The gate was closed and the sniper went up into the towers. Rest of the soldiers stood at the fortifications, with the rifles aimed at the open field. TLW grabbed his weapon and went up on off the position where he could see the open field. He only could see silouttes of soldiers, but they were marching down. In perfect order. Infront a man went with a banner of the bull waiving at front.  
"No one fires until my command" TLW said. It was seen as the legion wanted to talk first. The man that walked infront of the Legions soldiers were wearing a redish uniform and a hat from a wolf. The soldiers that walked with him were only in a number of 50. It was not an attack squad, just a protection group. The soldiers stopped just before the start of the bridge after the wolf-man raised his hand in a fist. A signal to stop. He then walked two paces infront of them. It was total silence. Even though he had 100 soldiers aimed their weapons at him, the wolf-,man was calm.  
"My name is Ignarius Decurus. I represent the Eastern army of the Legion of Ceasar, the son of Mars. I want to talk to the commander of this settlement."  
"Dont do this, its a trap" Reilly said. TLW agreed but if it was a little chance for keeping the peace, he would take it. (It was clear that TLW did not fully agree the ideology of the Legion.)  
"Okay, this is what we will do. I will go out there. Keep the snipers target the first row of the group. When they fall i will have a spare second to get behind cover. I will take care of this Ingarius guy. Open the gate and close it, but not lock it." Reilly nodded and went to effective the order. TLW pointed at two of the soldiers not on the barricade. "You and you, come with me."

Half a minute later they walked with short paces through the bridge. Knowing that there were 200 people watching them. He passed what was the former foundation of a toll-booth. It was a concrete block not more than half a meter tall. It would be enough cover while the snipers took care of the escort group. He looked at Ignarius Decurus. A middle height man with brown hair and a nose that had been broken once, and not been properly healed. Except of that the man would have slide in into every environment.  
"Hail Ceasar. I am Ignarius Decurus, second of Command og the commander of the East, Malpais Diabolous. I am here to give you a proclamation of peace and opportunity to join the legion."  
"You can call me The Lone Wanderer. I am the representative of the Pitt."  
" Ahh yes. You reputation proceeds you. I heard that you are the one that brings civilization to the degenerates. I am here to give you an offer to join the ranks of Ceasar."  
" So basically you give us the opportunities to join you and what you do. And that is after you blow down a ship and kills 6 people." The wreckage was still burning, barerly visible from the bridge.  
"You have to forgive us for that. We saw it as a threat against our armies and made action to protect our soldiers."  
" Let me just say that, we have talked to many people that have escaped you and your soldiers. People that have seen horrors and tells stories about slavery and no respect for the human life."  
The smile on Ignarius grinded. "You dont see our vision of life. Society need order, not anarchy. Our mission is to protect the best way of life, and protect that we builds. We will not let the world go into the anarchy it had gone trough the last 200 years. I will give you an offer to join our ranks and you and The so called Mall will be yours to govern, as a loyal subject to Ceasar himself."  
"Tempting, but i have a better suggestion. I will give you 2 hours to turn around, walk away and never come back. If not i will fill this field with your soldiers blood and there will never be another army of your like again."  
"Ahh, a sadness that we need to solve this in blood. But be aware, the wrath of Ceasar and Diabolous, no buildings or man can withstand. You will beg for death, and when it comes, your ashes will be spread and your name will be removed of the record, with all that you build up."  
Ignarius Decurus lifted his hand and turned around. In a practiced move the soldiers moved aside coordinatly to let Decurus go infront and they started marching back, over the hill. TLW turned around with two of his men and started walking back.

Inside of the gate, he again meet Reilly.  
"So what did he say?" she asked.  
"He offered me the chance to let them take us all as slaves without the bloodshed."  
"And what did you ansver."  
"That it would be to much work watching over you that i asked him to go to hell."  
She thought about it for a second.  
"So what now?"  
"We need someone to recognize the enemies. I need to know the numbers we are up against, and what kind of weapon they have. We can not rely on the prisoners word. And start organising a watch list. We are on high alert. I want 75% of the soldiers in full alert, and the rest of them sleeping in armor. Most probably are the Legion trying to look for weak spots around the structure. I want everyone to know that they can shoot too kill now."  
" I will get it done."  
Incoming!

Already? TLW thought. The alarm was triggered again. TLW looked at the field. From the hills, row of redressed soldiers came down. At least 2000 of them. They were armed with small rifles, but otherwise, little armed.  
"Soldier, at my command you will return fire."  
TLW raised his hands. He looked carefully where the soldiers were. He had plased landmarks at different distances to know how far away they were. They went past the 500 meter marker. The 400, the 350. At 200 meters there were in this weather about 80-85% accuracy prediction of shoots. Then they passed the 200 meter marker and all hell broke loose. "FIRE!" TLW screamed and the sound of 150 different guns were heard. In the first row almost half of the soldiers fell. There were some screams but it was over voiced by the sound of gunfire. The legion started firing back. Their accuracy was remarkably good for being able to aim and walk in a steady pace. TLW looked. four soldiers had been hit. Two already dead. The medics, went up on the barricade and dragged them away.  
"Fire at will!" TLW screamed. More and more of the legion soldiers fell but they were walking in the same pace. They were approaching the bridge in frightening manner. If they established themselves there it would cost many more lives to get them away. TLW had two chances, he could either blow up the bridge or use the radio-remote mines. The first chance would isolate them as well as the legion. He took up the detonator for the mines.  
"Forgive me." he said to himself while pushing the button.  
Nothing happened. Then he remembered that he activated them, not set them off, and the legion had still not entered the minefield yet. Only twenty seconds later the first explosion happend. Then the next one, then the third one. It was a symphony of explosions. The soldiers at the barricade looked at the massacre. and stopped shooting. The lines that the Legion held was now in shambles. The soldiers could not longer be controlled and the lines broke up. More explosions as the soldiers retreated back into the minefield. Not more than minutes later they had retreated behind the hill.  
"They wont be coming back tonight." One of the soldiers said. People started cheering and waving. But TLW realised that there were no need for that. They had just played out their strongest card, and the Legion had lost nothing but their ordinary food canons.

Exactly three hours later the sun was raising and the vision of hell was unfolded. TLW looked at the former minefield. There were at least 250 dead bodies lying on the field. Some definitely dead, some in gruesome pain. He could hear some of the screams. Some had tried to crawl back, and one had managed to crawl over the bridge and was knocking at the gate. The guards were considering taking him out his misery. The tragedy struck when one of the followers of the apocalypse were allowed to threat the soldier. Little did she know that the soldier had chocked a grenade. She died instantly and took the total of causalities up to 15 at the Pitt. At that moment the policy were kill on sight. No matter what. Now the war council sat in the open place tent. TLW looked at the map.  
" It sums up the legion pretty well. The weak takes the heat from the strong. Something i noticed were that i did not see any officers in the ranks. I am pretty sure that they were the weakest of the conscripts. And we used our biggest advantages to get rid of them."  
" So what can we do now?" Reilly asked.  
" Nothing. There is nothing we cant don. Not until the recognizanse troops are back. It really worries me that we dont know the exact number of the soldiers. If they can afford a loose of 200 the first night, i am afraid that they are many more."  
"Why not use one of the Vertibirds?" asked one of the senior Steels that was attending the meeting.  
"No use. Vertibird is for troop movement. The anti-air defences have not worked and the enclave never bothered to fix them. They will be food for their rockets."  
" I want full report from the scouts. We are gagged and blindfolded until that intel comes back." TLW said and ended the meeting.

"Incoming!" one of the watchmen told again. The alarm went of and TLW walked up on the barricade. He realised soon that it was not a new attack. It was ten soldiers at the top of the hill. To far away from anyone than the snipers to take them out.  
"Orders sir?" the snipers said over the radio.  
"Procentage of hit sucess?"  
"Less than 50 sir"  
"Hold it."  
What were the legion up too. Then he saw that they were putting up something. Oh no!, it was a cross. "Give me some binoculars!" TLW shouted high up. A soldier on the barricade gave him one. Then he got the chill. They were cruxifixing the scouts he had sent out. He could see the nails that were pushed into their palms. They were still alive. The legion soldiers disappeared as soon as the crucifixion cross was in place. So everyone could see them. TLW took up the ham-radio.  
" Snipers, you know what to do..."  
"Affirmative that..."  
One shot, two shot, three shot and the final four shot. TLW took up his binocular again. It was good luck. All of them had hit the soldiers. He watched them for a minute to make sure that they were dead. That the mercy killing had gone through. He breathed heavily. It would take a toll on the morale.

The legion prisoner they had captured was still linked to his bed. He had been on 24 watch to make sure that he did not commit suicide. TLW walked into the tent and relieved the solider on guard. He then sat down infront of the bed.  
"He cruxified your spies, didn't he?" the legion officer said.  
"Yes he did." TLW said slowly.  
"And now you will repay the favor?" he asked with no difference in his tone. His death were nothing something he cared for.  
"No, first of all, i think it would just do their work, and second of all, its what separate us from you."  
"So what do you want for me?" the Legion soldier asked.  
"Your uniform."

It was a little tight, but it worked. Had TLW gained some weight lately? It was post-nuclear apocalypse world and he managed to gain weight. He hated his metabolism. Reilly looked at him. She was the only one that was letting in on his plan.  
" Are you sure about this. If you get captured it will kill the morale here and put our tropps in disarray."  
" You will keep them in charge. I have soldier wearing my clothes and staying in my room. The official reason is that i am in dire need of some sleep and not to be disturbed in 12 hours. Enough time to get there and back. We need more information of them. We cant kill the snake before we know that we can cut its head.  
"Your funeral." she said while TLW took on his googles.  
"As i told, you need to enter through the sewer ducts. and swim underwater until you cross the river. I will seal the hatch afterwards. Here take this." Reilly gave him rapid light flashlight. "It is waterproof and have battery enough for several days. When coming back, flash the light so we know its you."  
Roger that he nodded. They walked discretely out of the room and down to the sewer pipe. They opened it and TLW gave Reilly the black cape that he concealed his uniform, and crawled down.  
"God, it stinks down here" he said.  
"Suck it up." She helped him down and closed the hatch afterwards. He started crawling. It was tight, barely enough for one man to fit in. He crawled at-least for ten minutes before he finally felt the breeze from open air. It was night and it was silence. The end of the sewage pipe were plased one meter above the sea that was directly under him. He jumped and splashed into the water. It was a heavy uniform, but not heavily enough too drown him. He swimmed the distance in five minutes before he hit land again. He then realised that he was soaking wet now. But it would dry out in half an hour. His biggest fear right now was getting the flu.

He kept the pace and reached the other side of the hill than less than 15 minutes. He was starting to dry up now also. At the other side of the hill he could see the camp right away. It was stationed maybe one and a half click away. And it was massive. The tent stretched out almost until the horizon. TLW thought that it at least were 10.000 soldiers there. A massive amount. And they also had used their time effectively. They had started with building an fortification and there were sentries around the place. He needed to blend in.  
TLW sneaked in at the fort. Or more correctly, he walked in without any asking. They were conscript in military culture that treated them worse than dirt. And TLW was wearing a officer uniform. He looked around. The tent were organized in perfect rows. He could see what would be the main tent in the center of the camp. A massive telt situated on a little hill, overlooking the rest of the camp. It was guarded by soldiers that was wearing power-gloves. A weapon more deadly than any other melee-weapons. It was there he needed to be. Then he saw the only person he did not wanted to see. Ignarius. He was walking not more than 50 meters away. He was the only person that could recognize TLW.  
The seconds it took too Ignarius pass him was one of the longest in TLW memory. But fortunately he walked straight trough him and into the command tent. There had to be some sort of meeting there. He looked at the security. There were only two men at the entrance. They did not see soldiers spying as big threat. He looked around, it was nothing that reminded him of the security there. TLW started to move to the backside of the tent. There was a spot there, hidden between some crates that made it possible too listen without no one noticing. TLW managed to poke a hole inside the telt. He looked into a big room. With two torches lightning up the room. There was a table in the middle, but nothing else. He then waited.

It took 35 minutes before someone arrived. TLW who had started to go into relaxation jumped up when he heard the steps. It was a soldier, it looked like one of the ones that guarded the entrance. Then Ignarius arrived inside the room. Then he saw the face of the commander. It could be no other than than Malpais Diabolous. The man in charge. It had to be. TLW could only partly look at him, but it was enough. A tall man. At least 1.85 meters tall, and barrel chested. The man wore a golden armor shaped like a body, and under a black uniform. But it was not that made TLW scared. It was the helmet. It was carved in gold. It was a shape of a demonic figure. A nightmare. It would spread fear in its enemies. No doubt about it.  
The demonic figure started speaking.  
"So i heard that treading the waters were successful" he asked the other soldier that was not Ignarius.  
"Yes Malpais. As you foresaw, they mine-trapped the area infront of the bridge. We sent our soldiers there too disable them. The only loses were our newly recruted legionaries.  
" Good, then we can start about our attack. Ignarius, did you take care of the ones that escaped back here?"  
"Yes Malpais, Crucified as you wanted. The artillery is being placed upon the second hill and are being prepared as we speak. In less than three hours we can start our artillery barrage. It will destroy them utterly before we move the main forces through the bridge."  
"They will surely have rigged the bridge with explosives as a last resort. So i have ordered the auxiliary unit to prepare the ladders. As long we can explode the gate we simply will overwhelm them." Ignarius stopped talking.  
" Then we will burn the city too the ground and salt the ashes and enslave the filth that is there." It was the voice from the unnamed soldier.  
"No, not this time Brutus of Carthago. We need the Pitts melting oven to support the Borealis project."  
The Borealis Project? TLW remembered the name and then went back into the project.  
Brutus of Carthago continued.  
"It was the will of Caesar to remove the heretics of the east."  
" Caesar have given me other orders. Too enslave them but too keep the project running. When we are done here we march to the Mall and then the city will be the Legions empire in the east." Malpais Diabolous looked at Brutus while silence roared. It was clear that it meant that this was not something that Brutus should Question. He understood the hint.  
"So then we use the heretics from Talon and the rest of the slavers as front line tomorrow.?" Ignatius asked.  
"Yes, the filth need to be filtered.  
So that were the Talon Merc company went, to join the legion. They were probably in for a suprise, TLW thought too himself.  
He listened for the next 15 minutes while the leaders discussed before the meeting was adjourned. He stood up and looked around. Nothing much had changed around the camp. Some of the blacksmiths were grinding swords. Strange, swords were obsolete in this age, but they still used it.  
TLW had accomplished his mission, but he did not like the fact that the Legion had artillery weapons. They could brist the wall in short time and that would be the end of the Pitt, and no more than months later the Mall.  
They had to be removed and the best chance to do it was now. He needed some explosives. But how will he find them in this massive camp. He then realised that he was dressed as an officer.  
He walked to the first recruit he saw.  
"Recruit, where is the weapon armory?" He asked in a angry tone.  
The slave soldier who were trained to be mindless slave answered immidatly.  
"In the first row of the third column Decanus," he answered while pointing in a special direction. Visible shaking. TLW ignored him and started walking while the recruit continued with the same chores as he did before.

The armory tent was heavily guarded. By recruits, so there were no problem getting access. He actually thought how the experienced scouts could be captured when there seemed to be no sentries or swipe guards around the area. He let that monologue aside and started looking for explosives inside the telt. It was nicely organized with weapons stacked and ammunition next to it. Some spears were racked along with swords also. It took some minutes before TLW found what he was looking for. Thermonite TNT, even better than grenade. TLW knew that it was the most damaging of all explosives. It literally burned all of the metal into a big ball. He took 3 kg of it and some wire. He had hoped that it could be detonated through a remote, but all he found was a timer. Well. A hell better than nothing. He walked out of the tent. The artillery were being placed upon a hill, it could be not be to difficult to find. Right before TLW exited the tent he realised that some protection was necessary. He took a ordinary 9mm pistol and a clip in case something went down and put in inside of the uniform.

He was right, the artillery was being assembled on top of the second hill. It had taken a little longer time to find them because of the night. He looked at them. It was standard Howitzer five man weapons. But they would tear shred into the wall in no time. TLW went up on the hill. It was chilling, not just because of the winter cold, but also because only some kilometers away, the walls of the Pitt and the light that it generated were clearly visible. There were 5 Howitzer artillery weapons there. Three of them already fully assembled and being prepared for attack, while the two other were half way done. Some legionaries were fully working on them but did not notice TLW. Of course. He had a fuse as a timer. It was a three minute timer, enough to run and get the hell out of there. The plan was to plant the charge on everyone and lit the fuse on the one in the middle. The explosion would trigger the rest of the explosives and start a chain-reaction. He went to too the first one.  
"Leave now!" he said to the recruits that followed the order. He then put a dash of the thermite tnt under the recoil stabilizer. The weak point. He repeated it three times, but then he meet troubles.  
"Hold it!" he heard someone say.  
TLW turned around slowly and saw a man dressed more proper than he approaching. Definately a higher ranking official.  
"What are you doing?" he asked.  
"Just maintenance" TLW said slowly.  
"Why are you dismissing my men, and delay the time-limit we have?"  
"Orders sir."  
"From who...wait a second, there is something familiar with you. Take off your googles."  
TLW did as he was told, but at the second he removed his googles he came to a realisation. The higher-ranking officer was a familiar face. It was Jabsco. The leader of the Talon Company. He had integrated his soldier into the legion and this was his payment.  
"Wait a second, i know you...you are.."  
At the same second both TLW and Jabsco raised their guns. They were having a mexican-standoff. Thanks to the dark this situation was not noticeable for the recruits that were starting to get back to their work.  
"So you work for the legion now? Thats why you do disapeared from the Capital wasteland?"  
"You blame me. You singlehandly killed over 60 of my men through out your adventures, you think we would just wait for you to eradicate us?"  
"So you let the Legion do it instead?"  
"You are kidding, i have more power now than ever before. Malpais Diaobolus have grand plans and he will make me the governor of the capital wasteland."  
"He will ether brainwash you or make you a slave, the legion does not compromise."  
Jabsco smiled. "I will take my chances, now onto you. Why are you here? Spying on us? Why are you working witht the degenerates at the Pitt. Slavers like the rest of us."  
"Things have changed. Human life's is no longer valued. We will rebuild and the likes of you will disappear into the forgotten."  
"Funny, you are more confident than the rest that i captured. You did not train them properbly. We saw them miles ahead. The crying when we hit the nails into their palms. You saw that. We have built many more crosses for them."  
TLW looked at Jabsco and then smiled. It made Jabsco loose his. "Listen Jabsco. You are not a soldier, you are coward. And since you never learned from battle, you never learn the tricks that keeps you alive. Like for example to check if your gun safety lock is switched off." Now Jabsco face turned into fear. TLW let him check it out, and when he saw the switch was placed on the letter ON. He eyes bulged.  
Enough!  
TLW noticed Jabsco trying to open his mouth, but it was too late. TLW pulled the trigger. Jabsco head was thrown backward and he died instantly. He fell down on the ground lifeless with a bullethole in his forehead. Now the hard part. Gunshot were not unusual so no alarm was sounded. But someone would definatly investigate the noice.  
TLW turned around. Some investigating soldiers with their weapon drawed moved against him, drawed too the sound. He had some seconds before they would notice the body. He quickly attached the last piece of TNT to the artillery. Now he only needed to lit the fuse. FUCK!, he did not have a lighter. He then took another look at the soldiers approaching. It would now be only a moment or two before they discovered the body of Jabsco. He needed something too start the fuse.  
The torch!  
There was a torch on the artillery at the other end. They used it too light the area up so they could see what they were doing. That meant that he had too run through the three soldiers that were approaching. TLW breathed one last time and took up his gun again.  
Baam! Baam! Baam! Baam!.  
Four shots, three dead legion soldiers. They all fell to the ground. Now definatly something was wrong. There was some high shouts that came from the camp. He had maybe a minute before thousand of soldiers were storming the hill. He ran to the other side of the hills and grabbed the torch. At the same second the dust on the ground were being thrown up. They had start shooting at him. The run back was of pure luck. At one moment he could feel the airwave of the bullets going past him. He then approached the artillery where he had put the fuse and thrown himself into cover. The sound of bullets hitting metal were heard. He took another breath and lit the fuse. It only took a second before the sparks came from the fuse. He had now about two minutes before the explosion. There were of course a chance that the legion soldiers would find and blow ut the fuse. But the chances for that were little. He then started running.  
Running like he never had ran before.

He almost fell running down the hill, but still managed to put his body to maximum capacity. He then found turned on the flashlight so it started blinking intensily. Hopefully Reilly have told the sentries to not shot at blinking signal. He crossed the open field, fully aware of that he had deactivated the rest of the mines. Halfway across the battlefield the tnt exploded. It created a huge blast, then another, then another one, and then another one. It created a huge fireball that lighted up the sky. Now the odds were equal.

Not more than five minutes later TLW was inside the gate of the Pitt with soldiers looking at him with amusment. Reilly suddently arrived.  
"We saw the blast, something to do with you?" she asked with a smile.  
"You can say that. They had artillery there, but i got rid of that."  
"Artillery, that would rip our gates apart."  
"Yeah, but thats not a problem anymore. We need to lay a tactic. Call me someone from the third link. I need to talk too them."  
"At once."

They again were gathered at the war tent. But this time there was a young short man dressed in a red robe with them. It was Scribe Wergeland. The liason too the Third Link. The espionage service of the Mall. He had just being told about what TLW had heard.  
" I can check it out with our database. But i personally never have heard about this project Borealis. I will ask our agents to include it in the interviews we do with every new merchant that arrives at the mall and i will also ask Mr Washington if he can find something of it in his libraries."  
"Thanks Wergeland. I believe that the Legions main goal is not to conquer the Mall, but too get control of the resources at the Pitt. And that worries me. Conquering is one thing, but to have a 10.000 strong army just to take over production when they could pay for it is another." TLW said.  
"Yes thats another thing i wanted to discuss with you" Wergeland said. "We have suspicion to believe that this Legion here is not what we are led to believe it is."  
"What do you mean?".  
" We started to tap other radio-communication, and thanks to the efforts of restorting the radio towers we can tap into communication as far away as over the middle wasteland. We manage once to listen into communication from a place called New Vegas." Wergeland pointed at the map of the United states on the place were Las Vegas once was.  
"All the way over here. Thats months if not years of marching before they could get here. How can an army of 10.000 to 20.000 march all the way and sack cities in less than a year?"  
"I dont know." TLW said.  
" They cant. Its impossible to sustain logistically an army of that size through that terrain."  
"Could they reinforce their armies through the tribes they conquered?"  
"Maybe, but i dont believe so. It will make to much a fuzz through the caravans."  
"So what do you believe?"  
"I believe that someone is using the ideology of the Legion too their own gains. We have listened in to the Legions broadcast for many months, and not once have we intercepted communication between this and the Legion at the other side of the continent."  
"So what you are saying is?""  
"I am saying that this form of Legion is fake. Someone gathered an army of false premises and that they never arrived from the west."  
"Interesting, but too no value for us, is it?"  
"No unfortunately not. The threat is as real as before, but still." Wergeland finished.  
"Of course, i am glad for this information. It seems that there is more than meets the eye in this case."

The next day went quietly. The legion only showed their teeth to scout. Two times the sniper got them in their sight and shoot them. TLW assumed that it was because of the lack of artillery they needed to change their plans. TLW cursed that he did not have enough men for an rush-strike, but were limited to keep the soldiers inside the gates. But supplies came from the Mall at regular rate. They could stay here for many years.  
At the evening the alarm went off.  
TLW jumped up from his bed and again looked at the battlefield, and got a shock. From the hills thousand of soldiers came marching down the hill. In perfect columns they marched. It was an all out attack. TLW turned on the ham-radio.  
"Orders to the snipers. Focus on the officers. They are straight hierarchy, and without leadership they will be shattered.  
"Affirmative."  
The sound of the barrels shooting were heard. From his place on the barracks he could see that legion soldiers were falling down on the ground, but they continued marching. Then the front row started to run. They were aiming for running over the barricade.  
"To all defenders, free fire." TLW gave orders on the speakers, the soldiers did not have to be told twice. Fireburst from their rifles lighted up the barricades and the rate for falling Legion soldiers increased rapidly. But for every one that fell, two ran him over. It was now clear that they could not stop them from approaching the bridge. TLW took up the detonator too the explosives under the bridge. He needed to push the button.  
He with a twitch pushed down the button.  
Nothing happened.  
He tried again.  
No use.  
Dammit, they did not work. TLW had to think fast. He ran down from the barricade and grabbed and action bolt rifle.  
"I need 15 volunteers!" he shouted to the reserve force that were standing infront of the gate incase of a breach. He got them at once as almost all of them raised their hands. TLW picked randomly out fifteen of them.

"Equip yourself for full combat and meet me here in two minutes." He then turned around to Reilly who were standing right next to him.  
"Status."  
" 8 down, and the Legion approaching the barricade."  
" Can you keep them off."  
" They are using shields to protect themselves. We can use grenade and explosives, but it can hurt the gate." She said with a calm voice.  
" Can you hold them off for half an hour?"  
" Why?"  
"I am taking some men with me and performing a pincer attack. With the army here the base has to be lightly protected. I need to cut the head of the snake. We are going through the same way as before. But i need half-an-hour."  
" We will stand on our ground." she said.  
"Good."

Four minutes later the first soldiers were crawling to the same duct as TLW. It took them a good then minutes to get them all trough the duct and over the river. They used another five minutes to pack out the weapons from the linen that kept the weapons dry.  
"Okay men, we are attacking. Kill everything on sight. Our brothers is fighting to give us enough time to do this. Lets go!"  
They all ran. Fully armed they assualted the camp. The security was a suspected lightly. All of them busy fighting 2 kilometers away. Like a tornado TLW and his soldiers ran trough the camp, killing everything they saw. The guards at the place were caught of guard and at-least 25 died before they noticed the intruders. But then they reorganized and started fighting back. TLW lost three of his men the next two minutes.  
"Start a perimeter around the main tent," he screamed while running towards it. The rest of the soldiers followed through. They took cover where they could around the main enemy tent.  
"Stay put, i will deal with the leaders." TLW said while running in. He open the tent with his Pistol drawn up. There were no one there. He searched the rest of the tent that was separated through tent sheets. It was empty. Then he came to the map room. The room he had spied on the day before. The only thing there was the wooden table. And on that table layed the one thing that gave him the fear. It was the helmet of Malpais Diabolous. Then TLW felt a sharpen pain in his shoulder. He was shot. He fell down on his knee and turned around.  
It was Ingarius standing with a silenced weapon. He smiled evil at TLW.  
"So you thought this little tactic of your would work?" he said while walking towards TLW.  
" No, i wont." Ignarius kicked away the gun that TLW had lost.  
"You see, that right now our whole army is attacking your gate. After we managed to disarm the explosives the first night we knew that it only need strength to break you down."  
TLW felt ill, he had suffered a heavy blood loss.  
" So where is your leader, fleed?" TLW asked, an action that demanded greath strength.  
" You dont know anything. He is gone to watch over our final project. He will give me this victory and we will be written in golden letters in the history."  
"You mean Project Borealis?"  
Ignarius smile dropped a little, then it came back. "How did you know, doesn't matter. You are soon dead and i will meet my victorious troops and we will kill everyone of your degenerates."  
At that moment one of TLW soldiers went into the tent. "Chief, we cant hold them..." more he could not say before his chest exploded. Ignarius had killed him. TLW saw the opportunity and crawled und the table. Ingarius turned around again and fired two bullets. Both hit the table.  
"How long do you think that you can run? Your men here is defeated, The Malpais is gone and Brutus is protected by the Pretorian guard, your little plan failed." Ignarius moved to the side of the table. Reading himself for the kill.  
"There you are" he said when he noticed TLW lying there. He pointed the gun at him.  
"Lights off!" Ingarius said. TLW closed his eyes. Then the world crumbled.  
The ground shacked. Like a big earthquake. TLW realised the opportunity when Ignarius lost his balance and grabbed the gun. He managed to push it away from his head, and two bullets were fired from Ignarius reaction, right next his ear. TLW then hit Ignarius in the side of the wrestled him to the ground.  
He then hit him in the face once, then twice. Ignarius started to bleed from the wrist on his check.  
Then another earthquake, this was a artillery barrage. Now it was so strong that the tent plugs were falling loose. The whole tent collapsed and fell upon TLW and Ignarius. They both were blind. While TLW were struggling to get the tent sheets away he heard two shoots. Then he heard a body fall down on the ground. He realised that it was Ignatius when he saw the dead body five seconds later. Ignarius had been shoot through the tent. Two bullets in the torso and he was now dead. That was the last thing TLW noticed before he started to feel the blood loss. His vision started to blur, the last thing he noticed where some shouts coming against him. Then it came to darkness.

He woke up with a push. TLW breathed heavily and noticed that he was at the infirmary at the The Pitt. He looked around. He had been bandaged around his shoulder. His clothes were on a chair right next to him. He took up his clothes and looked at his Pip-boy. He had been sleeping for three days. That explained the IV needle that he dragged out. He dressed and went out of the tent. The open place was filled with empty alcohol bottles. He looked around. There were less soldiers now than before and some of them that was standing guard were not paying attention. He went up the barricade and looked at the battlefield. There were still tons of blood, but all of the corpses were removed. He also saw craters, not coming from the mines at the battlefield.  
"There you are!" he heard a female voice shouting.  
He turned around and looked at Reilly who were smiling.  
"What happend?"  
"We won!" she said with a smile.  
"Yes we did!" it came from another female voice. It was Sarah, not wearing her Power armor.

They explained everything. Sarah had used the time gathering the tribes around the area, and they had raided a weapon armory. They started the artillery barrage at the nick of time. After splitting the legion army with the shells it was not problem for the 500 men strong army to attack and destroy the remans of the Legions army. They calculated as many as 1400 legion soldier had died. Many more committed suicide and some few had been taken capture. She also explained that herself had killed Ignarius.  
When TLW asked how she could recognize him trough the tent sheets, she said that she would recognize the siluette of the wolf-hat everywhere. They also discovered TLW in the nick of time. The bad news was that the none of the 15 men that charged the camp survived.  
They had celebrated for two days straight afterwards.

"So we won." TLW asked?  
"We won, and obliterated all of them." Reilly said with a smile.  
"Good, then i want to go home. I need to talk to the Third Link."  
"Why?" Reilly asked.  
"Because the Malpais escaped."  
"You mean the commander called Brutus? We found him among the dead. Killed by an artillery barrage."  
"No, not him. I mean the Diabolos guy. He have escaped and until we get him we cant be safe. We need to find him."  
"All in due time." Sarah said.  
"Right now, i think some time back at the Mall is necessary. I have called the Vertibirds. We will keep a garrison of 100 men here for the time being, but we need to do some diplomacy with the tribes that helped us. With the artillery and them we will be the strongest power on the eastern seaboard. But that is something Elder Lyons and the scribes will help with." The words from Reilly somehow allowed TLW to relax.

It took another five days of eating and relaxing before TLW had the energy to visit the Third Links headquarters. The Mall had changed the months he was gone. Even though they were actually at war, it did not seem to affect the city. The renovation project went forward and now more buildings were renovated then ever before. He actually had warm water in his apartment. Warm Water! A warm shower he had not taken since his time at the vault. The biggest problem were the refugees at Arefu. The reports were lightly positive. There were crimes, but not more than the mercenaries could handle. Now as the soldiers were back there would be more focus on uptaining the law.  
Other positive news was that the paved road to the Pitt were 100 kilometers long. Even though it would take years before the road to the Pitt was done it was more and more safer and showed sign of progress. The first travel settlement was also established on the outskirts of the road. Reports had told that the earth were fertile and in time it would be a good farming community.

TLW was now sitting down in the fully upgraded meeting room of the Third Link. He enjoyed the small cookies that were being made in the cafeteria and eat halv of the tray. The door opened and in came Scribe Wergeland, Sarah Lyons and Abraham Washington.  
"Good to see you on your feet again" Washington said and shook hands with TLW.  
"Lets not waste any time, tell him what you told me Abraham." Sarah rudly demanded.  
"Of course sweetheart. As Wergeland asked me i checked into our record of this Project Borealis. Unfortunately there were noting in the national archives. But however in the Arlington Library there were a notification. It say that a paper from 2064 was archived in the New York Public Library."  
"So the breadcrumbles lead to New York?" TLW asked  
Sarah interrupted. "Unfortunately yes. It match our caravans description of a increased travel pattern into the area from The Pitt."  
"You believe that Diavolous escaped to New York? He would take a real detour to not pass the Pitt to get there."  
"None the less. New York is stil a neutral zone between us and The commonwealth, and you can get anything from the rumble there. It all makes sense."  
"Then i need to go to New York." TLW said with a silent voice.  
"Agreed," Wergeland started to talk. "We have already come in contact with some of the trading routes. One of our new trade routes, less than 5 months old is to an outpost just outside of New York. A settlement governed by a group called The minutemens. I have spoken through them on the radio. For some discount on food and materials they will provide us with the help we need."  
"Then its settled then.

Less than 24 hour later, an old riverboat left the basin with TLW onboard. The trip would take atleast two weeks, so he had brought with him pre-war books on the city and its history to read. He looked at the Washington monument disapeared away from the horizon. He then went to his cabin. He would need all the sleep he could get. Still he did not know that even though he had been shoot, been in war and rebuilding the society, the hard part was still ahead.


	15. New York

"Approaching Governor Island!" the voice from the bridge shouted.  
Finally TLW thought. The last two weeks had gone slowly. TLW had used the time on exercise in the coal basement and reading about New York. From the earlier history when it was called New Amsterdam until the last books that were published before the war.  
He had also read about the Minutemen. They were a para-military group established for less than forty years ago. Some caravan traders tired of the anarchy of the west came over the Governor Island. Throughout the years they barricaded and made a settlement on the island. Since then it has been the only civilized fortress in the area. The scribes speculated that the survivability of the group would not have existed if it were not for the natural fortress that the Governor Island was. A star shaped fortress from the old age and surrounded by polluted heavy rivers that made it impossible to invade.

The boat anchored at the dock and the workers started to unload the proviants for the island. Two Minutemens waited for TLW at the dock. They did not wear uniform but all of them had something blue dressed.  
"Are you the Lone wanderer?" one them asked.  
TLW nodded approved.  
" Welcome to New York" he said with a smile. TLW looked at the man. He was a chubby, unshaven man dressed in a blue overall. He was equipped with a police body armor and a 9 millimeter submachine gun.  
" I am Marko Alesvic, but call me Marko."  
"You are in charge?"  
"No, thats Lincoln Booth, i will guide you to him."  
"Thanks." They started walking and left the dock where people were working heavily to unload all the crates from The Mall.  
"Good place you have here." TLW had to admit. The island was not big, 172 acres and just 1 km away from the island of Manhattan, but it was protected by the fort on the northern side and they lived on the barracks all around the place. With exeption of the natural decay it actually looked pretty habitable. Half of the island was also protected by a scrap metal wall that took care of any sniper bullets.  
"Thanks. My dad came here with my mom and settled here with 50 other people. They were only some feral ghouls living here so it was easy to take it over. Today we are over 200 people that seeks refugee from the wasteland of the Manhattan."  
TLW looked over at the other island. Some half-rotten skyscrapers were still keeping stand. "Is it that bad on the mainland?" TLW asked.  
"Depends on how you see it. The manhattan were for some reason not directly hit by the nuclear weapons, but the water got polluted and the infrastructure collapsed after the collapse in the areas called Bronx and Queens. The streets are a nightmare with collapsed buildings blocking the way. The easiest way is the subways, but there the feral ghouls are. The remnants of the people seeking shelter for the nuclear fallout.  
"So there are no friendlies there?" TLW asked.  
"None at all. There are some tribal groups living at the former park. They wont attack as long as we dont go into their areas or threaten them, but there are dozen of raiders and cannibal dens around there. But since the trades goes through the water no decent people ever visit the place. So they life of each other. Of course except when we need scavenging valuable material,"  
" I need to go to the New York Public library."  
"Yes we have been informed."  
They walked into the main building, just south of the fortress. Some guards with pistols guarded the well brushed up corridor. They walked into a room that was once used for a board meeting. Four other people waited there. Three men and one women. The tallest of them. A old man with with brushed hair went forward.  
" Ahh, you are the lone wanderer. I am Lincoln Booth, the overseer of the Minutemen."  
They shook hands.  
"We have been briefed about this situation and have already made a strategic plan. TLW now noticed that there was a map of Manhattan at the right side of the wall. He then introduced the other persons.  
"This is Johan, Nina and Gregor. They are our best scout party, they will be with you on the mission." He nodded nicely too them and then focused his attention against Marko again.  
"From the information we have received from The Mall about the index card we believe that the information you seek is here." He pointed to a dot very south of the map. Not the worst place to be located.  
"It is about 3 hours walk from the Park at the southside, where you will go too land. Unfortunately the library is in the Cleavers territory."  
"The cleavers?"  
It was the girl Nina that answered. "There are Jet high psychopaths that kills for sport, their member like to use cleaver, hence the name."  
"The good news is that the area is not a hotspot for them. After what we know they live more at the Seward Park area, a click away."  
"So why do we have to go on land at the southside of the island?" TLW asked.  
"Many reasons, first of all, the bridge called the Brookly collapsed into the river and blocked anything but water to pass through, and we know about barbarians settlement around the coast. And thanks to the tunnel we can go unoticed into land through the metro?"  
"Tunnel?" TLW wondered.  
"Yes, before the war they built a underwater tunnel. It has not been flooded yet at we can access it through the island. It will lead us straight to the metro network. No one will see us coming. We have planned for the operation to take 12 hours, it all depends on how long it will take for you too search at the library."  
"Thanks, it will not take long if it is there. 200 years with decay can change things. But its the only lead we have to track the mastermind that started a war against us. He needs to be found."  
"Dont say more. The leaders at the Mall, you need a better name for your country by the way, have made the daily life here much better for us. We dont need to risk life's to scavenge the mainland anymore. Its the least we can do." Lincoln finished the presentation.  
"I think the best is to start the operation at nightfall." Johan said. TLW looked at his Pip boy, that was 9 hours too. Good, then he could sleep in a real bed and go trough his equipment first.

He slept for six hours. In a bed that were on the best standard that you could get in this world. He then eat some beans and well burned brahim steak and flushed it down with a nuka-cola. Strange where the Nuka Cola came from. They could not be manufactured, but it was still one of the things that the Malls sold the most of. Maybe it was not so good that he drank sugar-water that had been sealed for two hundred years. He then equipped his gear. It was a relief from the combat gear he had been wearing the least months. It was some easily wore black clothes. With some combat boots and a backpack. Good, they needed to travel lightly. He then checked his weapons. He decided to go for close-combat weapons. A repaired 9 mm sub-machine gun. It would be the best weapon for the corridors and tunnels he had to go trough. He considered the ammo. Every bit weighted some. He decided to take five spare clips with him. That and the secondary Beretta 9 mm semi-automatic gun with 7 clips would be enough. Especially with two grenades and one flashbang. Then there was the supply. The guy named Gregor was the medic of the team, but from experience he took with him two stimpaks and a med-x. With 4 litres of water and some instant mac-and cheese the backpack was 7 kg. Enough to take back at least some books without loosing fatigue.

The three of them waited on the northern side of the Island. TLW looked at the fort. Once it must have been the ultimate place to protect people. They were all dressed in the same outfit. Nina was the teamleader and wore the same weapon as TLW, but a different brand. Johan was the commando and wore a Assault Rifle and had also the most of the equipment, like the radio. The last one was Gregor who tradition had the medic band around his arm.  
"Are you ready?" Nina asked  
"As ready as i ever will be." TLW noted.  
"Then lets get going." She said and they moved down a pier. Small one, not more than a meter wide. At the end of it was a hatch. She opened it with ease. They all crawled down the ladder. It was atleast 15 meters down before they hit something that looked like a sewer.  
" This is the upper maintenance part of the tunnel. We need to go about half a kilometer down here before we pass the main line." Nina said while turning on her flashlight.  
TLW thought about how much mankind could build before. Before they all went mad.  
One ladder more and they were in the main tunnel. TLW took a look at the area. The tunnel streched a long way. He found it strange that it havent collapsed yet.  
Old cars were spread around in an chaotic pattern, and some of them had crashed or were flipped over. A few skeletons could be seen here and there.  
" The tunnel collapsed on our right side. So we have no chance to go too the place that were formerly called Queens, but the way to Manhattan still is easy to get too. Its an hour walk before we come there." Nina said while touching the ground on the former tunnel road.  
They walked passed a checkpoint guarded byt five minutemens. The checkpoint consisted of a overturned truck that almost covered the whole road. Only a meter wide opening at the end. At the top of the truck they had made a ramp with a gatling gun pointing outwards there. The guards were disapointed that it was not the relievement that arrived. But smiled when they saw Nina.  
" When they established themselves at Governor Island, they soon stumbled upon this tunnel. Unfortunately it was infested with feral lost seven men before establishing this checkpoint. Afterwards they just fired the gun and they came running."  
"And now its your main access to the district?" TLW asked.  
"Yes it has been a blessing even though we can only use it to get too Brooklyn. We can slip in and out without the barbarians noticing us. If we had taken the boat they would have seen us immediately."

They walked for one hour, passing burned out car after burned out car. There must have been millions living in the city before the bombs fell. After a long while they stopped and walked into a side door.  
"The tunnel is no more use for us. It goes straight under the city, but it has collapsed not long from here. Fortunately again this door connect us to the standing metro systems.  
This time the walk was over in five minutes before they entered an abandoned subway terminal. But something was wrong. It was Nina that went into the room first, and at one of the columns she saw something she did not like.  
"Shit, its the symbols of the cleavers!" she said loud, but not screaming.  
"What, this is not their territory." Johan chocked his rifle and started sweeping the area. Nina touched the symbol, it was of a knife with a ring around it.  
"Still wet, they can be here!" Now everyone took up their weapons, TLW included.  
They waited, for one seconds, then two. Then they heard noises.  
"They are coming back" Johan whispered.  
"Hide, we will ambush them, most likely they go in group of maximum six with small firearms." Johan and moved to the side of the stars. The only way up from the station. Nina hid behind the column while Gregor jumped down at the tracks. No risk for any incoming trains. They were 200 years delayed. TLW followed the medics example and hid on the other side of the tracks. Then they waited. Shouting and growling noises were heard. Then noises of footsteps.  
TLW could count five of them when they entered the station. They were clearly not aware of the intruders.  
"Why is he making us claim the rotten stations?" one of them said in very broken english.  
"I dunno, after the suits came he have talked about taking back an unite the island. Does not matter as long as we get some free pussies!"  
"Yeah!" they screamed in agreement.  
"Lets find out where that door leads." one of them said while going through the door that the group just arrived from.  
They walked two steps from the column that Nina was hiding behind.  
"NOW!" she screamed and jumped out from her cover.  
The Cleavers had no chance. They were all killed before they could react with crossfire from four directions. TLW emptied half a clip, no need for more. After all of them fell down they aimed their gun on the direction at the stairs. The cleavers were stupid people and would rush down too see what the source of the noise was. After one minute it was clear that they were alone.  
"Okay lets see what we have here." Nina said and turned around one of the dead cleavers that had landed on front. Gregor and Johan followed the example.  
"This is an ugly fucker." Gregor said loudly. "And only armed with a butcher knife. This was not a fighting group." he concluded.  
"What the fuck..." it came from Johan.  
"What is it?" Nina asked.  
"This idiot is not a cleaver. He is a knicks."  
"You gotta be kidding." The reaction from Nina was intense.  
"What is the Knicks.?" TLW asked.  
" They are another one of the gangs in Manhattan. They are not cannibals, but very blood-thirsty. They and the cleavers have killed themselves for years now, and suddently they are in a same claimparty. Something does not add up." It was concluded from Nina.  
"I dont like this. Not a bit. They could have found our entrance." Gregor statement was true.  
"Indeed. When we come back we must find a way to conceal the entrance. But the chances for them discovering it before we come back is slim. Lets get moving."  
They took the stairs up and came out in nightlight.  
"We have six hours before the sunlight shines." Nina looked at her watch.  
It was pitch dark around them. The moon was not helping them at all tonight. On the good side were all three of the minute-men trained being scouts since their birth. They only needed to see a street sign and they know exactly where they were. One time they actually climbed over the ruins of a collapsed skyscraper.  
The sun were starting to push up into the horizon when Nina said that they were approaching the library. It was of course no guarantee that it could shed some light on the whole mystery of either Malpais Diavolos and the Borealis project, but was all they got.

It was not the most impressing building. A small colonial house with no special architecture traits. He was disappointed.  
"Hope this is the building. The library of former New York had many branches spread throughout the city." Gregor said.  
It was one of the problems that Washington said would not happen. The register at the Arlington specifically located this branch as the right one.  
They swiped the area around before they entered to the front door. The area was one of the places that were not being directly hit or destroyed and the buildings stood actually pretty well, being neglected for 200 years. They went into the building with caution. There could always be roamers, ghouls or people seeking refugee in this buildings. But after a quick check it was clear that no one had been here for a very long time.  
"When people loot, they take gold, they dont see the value of the books." Gregor said poetically. It was a ordinary check-in desk at the front entrance, with the rest of the books were placed on shelves around.  
"So what are we looking for?" Johan asked.  
" Section C, Shelv 4. Entitled "Borealis Project, a thesis from Dr Robert Klein." TLW answered. Learned the note a long time ago on all the time on the boat on his way to New York.  
"I found section C!" Johan screamed five minutes later. TLW walked towards him and saw him pointing his flashlight on a big letter C.  
Good, then it was easy to find shelf four. TLW moved his finger through the row of books. First once, then second, then the third time before he realised that it was not there.  
Fuck!  
TLW sat down in resignation. He had thought about this several times on his boattrip, but he would not see it as a possibility. There he sat for ten minutes while the rest of the team searched and the sun came into the windows and light the room up. As the sun rised he saw that the letters on of the books came through. It read Commentarii de Bella Gallico. It was Ceasar, the historical one, firsthand account of the Gallic Wars. TLW stood up and took the book out. In the same moment something fell down on the ground. It was a moviereel in a compact holotape. He looked at the tag. It only stood Borealis. The book itself was hollow, pages cut out too make room for the tape. It raised more question. Why was a hidden holotape archived in the national database registery? A question he would look trough when he came back.  
"Did you found it?" Nina asked.  
"I think so" TLW said while looking at the holotape.  
"So we can go back?" Johan asked.  
"No, we will stay here for a bit. The tribals are often most active in the morning. When the suspects are sleeping and the light can spot them. We stay for some hours. If anyone needs to get some sleep or grub now is the time. Gregor, use some of the books to light a fire. I have some canned beans with my name on." She was hungry like the wolf.  
It suited TLW good. Now he could watch the tape. He went into one of the corners of the room and put the holotype into his pip-boy.  
The screen went from showing his vitals to starting a movie.

A logo of the world and trident stretching around it was showing. The name Poseidon Energy stood around the globe. After some second the logo disappeared and they showed a old well beared man in a scientist coat. Behind him were a labratory were someone was working.  
_Good morning employee, i am Doctor Robert Klein, chief head of Poseidon research division. If you are watching this you have passed the interviews and become a member of our ever growing family. But that is not all, you have also been given huge amount of trust being assigned too the Borealis project. As written in waiver you signed, the work here is of outermost importance and any breach of confidentiality will be followed to the maximum extent of the law._

_However lets go into some history first. Poseidon Energy was the brainchild of Augustus Bogomil, an panamanian filantrop, and founded in 1993. After a difficult start it soon became the world leader in drill technique. Unfortunately Bogomil passed away not merely 20 years later. But not before he started the Borealis project that has been over 60 years in the making. At the same time Poseidon energy became the future biggest hope._ _Throughout the years the company grew and helped to develop technology that benefit mankind._  
The picture were first of an old ,Deguerro type photograph, man in his fifties. He looked thin with white hair and a white suit, he smiled. It then changed to a blurry picture of a facility. TLW could barely read the words HELIOS before the screen changed back to Klein.  
_And now we will again change the future for the better. The Borealis project will change our needs for... _The video was blurry and the audio lost for some seconds before it came back_...for our next generation. As a worker of the Borealis project you will not be assigned to our main facilities in Washington or Los Angeles, but instead work in our locations in New York. This is because.._interference_...is perfect in this area. With all luck the project will be finished within December 2077. Because this is government founded project it is imperative..._interference_...throughout the nation. Unfortunately i can't personally oversee the project myself since i am needed in the southwest commonwealth. But remember that this project can this global conflict once for all. We have used 60 years on..._interference_...and failure will not be tolerated. On behalf of the boards, our trustee and all americans. Good luck. The future is in your hands._

The picture changed to a copyright logo. Poseidon Energy 2073, five years before the great war. TLW watched it once more before he stood up and got some food. Two thoughts crossed his mind. The first one was that whatever the Borealis project was it was located in New York. The second thing was that the world biggest company used billions of dollars to use sixty years on the project. Whatever it was, it was big. He needed to report this in.  
" I need to use the radio." he said to Johan.  
The minuteman took of his backpack and packed out the ham radio while chewing on some dried beef. He used less than a minute to set it up.  
"You know how this works?" Johan asked.  
"Yes, is the signal strengt good enough here?" TLW replied. Johan looked at the display for some seconds.  
"Barely, i cant guarantee for the conversation."  
"Fair enough, i will try." TLW put in the frequency that the Third Link had obligatory listening duty on. He called in the third link several times, but only got static. After the fifth time he gave up.  
"Not lucky today?" Johan smiled when he said that.  
" No luck, but the information i got i need to tell soon." He was worried. This was bigger than him and the four guys here and needed to be told too the third link.  
"Dont worry, we will leave in 1 hour. But we will take another route back. I dont like the sun today." Nina said while looking through the windows.  
" Is worse than an ordinary sun-filled day?"  
" Yes, New york has very unstable weather. When it rains its always safe to travel outside. But when its perfect sun, every murder, cannibal and sadist are looking for some fun, food and booze." she had filled her can with beans and threw it easily over her shoulder. She then folded out a map of the subway system.  
" The nearest exit is two straight blocks here. We follow the Fulton st. until Chamber street and then its just one station until we are there we came from." If we are lucky it will take only two more hours."  
"You sure that we can get trough from the subway there?"  
"Yes, you outsiders havent travelled much in the system, but i can guarantee that we can reach the line. The only thing is the subway-rats." She looked at the TLW who was about to ask and kept telling, "one of the many gangs in New York. But they live under the earth, lives of rats and keeps for themselves up near central park. I highly doubt it we will encounter them." She folded back her map and put it into her backpack. "If we have all eat, lets move." Johan estingushed the fire and checked the outside. In less then five minutes they were all outside of the building.  
It was Johan that discovered it first.  
"Something is coming, wheels." he said slowly.  
"Lets move back into the building and hide" Nina ordered while removing the safety from her weapon.  
"No!, i have a feeling that they are on their way to this very building." TLW said slowly.  
Nina looked around. "Then lets hide under the rubble there." She pointed at the the former building on the other side. It had crumbled on its weight a long time ago. But there was a pile of wreckage that they could easily hide under. They did not hesitate. They ran and jumped down just in time as something came around the corner. TLW peaked up from the hiding spot and saw it was a cart, pull by six men dressed i raider uniform. Slaves?, behind the carnage again there were at least 30 raiders or some other form for tribals. They all ran into the library with weapons in their hand. But it was the person that came out the cart that peaked TLW interest. It was a big man, but TLW could only see the back of his head. It was a bald head with burn marks. He stood there for some minutes until one of the raiders came out and told him something. The raider was then given a slap so hard that TLW could feel it. Apparently it was not good news. TLW sight was broken by Nina that whispered to him.  
"We are moving out, follow me." she said while they crawled away on the other side of the building, They did not dare to stand up for at least one block and they did not talk until they entered the subway entrance.  
"What the hell was that" Gregor yelled when they jumped on the tracks.  
"I dont know, but they were looking for us. Someone knew that we were coming." Nina added.  
"A traitor?"  
"Not necessary, it could be that someone is following the same bread-crumble as me" it came from TLW.  
"Anyways, we were damn lucky. One more minute and they would have catch us off-guard. 30 raiders, dressed in rude battle armor. That is not something these primitives could manage on their own. Someone is breaking the equilibrium in Manhattan and we need to know more."  
"All in due time Johan, first we need to get back to the Governor Island and take it from there."

They walked for four hours before taking a rest. They had kept it going for a while now, and the fatigue were starting to show effect. They drank the rest of the water they had and went to do their natural needs before they started moving again. At the next station Johan, who were leading the group for the moment stopped and raisted his fist. The sign for strange activity.  
"I see lying bodies at the perrong" he said slowly. They all took up their weapons and moved slowly until they saw the full extent of the perrong.  
"Oh my" Nina said when she saw what was lying around.  
TLW who were at the back of the line took a peep. He had seen many sick things. The gore bags to the mutants. The burned bodies of the raiders, but this was something special. At the perron laid at least twenty dead living creatures. TLW hesitated to call them humans, they looked deformed. Their spine was bended and their skin was more rough than normal. Nina jumped on the perrong and took a look.  
"Mall-rats, executed." She concluded.  
"Why? They are not dominant or claims territory. They are barely humans." Gregors medic instinct kicked in hand he had taken out the doctors bag, but soon realised that it would be to no use. These people were dead for at least two days.  
"Maybe thats the reason." TLW said loud. The rest of the group turned around. TLW continued. "This remind me more and more of the Command and Conquer tactic. Someone is gathering the gangs here and the Mall-rats were as you said to no use. They cant be conquered and they cant be commanded, therefore they must be eradicated. Old roman tactics."  
"Old what?" Johan shouted.  
"Never mind. Something is going down in Manhattan, and the sooner we get back, the sooner we can solve this puzzle."  
They all agreed and pushed forward. It took them another four hours before they came back too the same station that they started in. The corpses of the cleavers were still there, and would soon start to rot.  
It was still the problem of the door into the tunnel. Right now it was only two doors and a ladder that separated Manhattan from the tunnel,  
"Maybe we can camuflage the door?" Gregor suggested. Nina looked at him and then at the door. "Yeah, it think its the best solution. When we get back to the island i will get someone to bring some materials to cover up this."

The last hour going through the tunnel was really taking a toll on the group. TLW lost his focus vision several times and it was a long time he was so happy as when he saw the barricade. When he crawled up again into the pier at Governor Island the night started to again reclaim the sky. Nina dismissed Gregor and Johan, and then they went to the barricades. Nina to lay down the report to Abraham Booth and TLW too radio the Third link. He gave a detailed report to Wergeland. When he was done he went past the food hall where he only grabbed a water bottle and some agave fruit. He ate i on the way too his room. He sat down on the bed took of his gear. At the moment he put the blanket he was in dreamland.


	16. Vault and money

"No, i said let the drain pipe go along the road and put at the end of the basin. Then the sewage will go out to the open sea and taken by the drift. Now it will go into the basin and our fresh water source!."  
Reilly was frowning around her mouth. How did TLW manage to cope with these idiots. Right now she was standing with the work-leader of the drainage workers. They have been given the task of placing a water pipe all along the area and let it go out the ocean. But the idiot had taken a short cut and let the pipe go out into the basin. It would pollute the sensitive eco-balance that were starting to grow around the area.  
"But miss Reilly, the cost would decrease if we..."  
"If everyone gets diarrhea and throw up. That would again increase the sewage that goes into the water, that again would." She stopped when the fact actually went into the work leaders mind.  
"Ohhh, yeah, i did not thought about that."  
"No shit." she said while she realised the double pun.  
"Look, just get it started again. We need to support the growing population. The pipe needs to be active within two months."  
"Dont worry Miss Reilly, this is a temporary setback, we now have the expertise. It will be done."  
The work leader started running away, realising that he was pushing this extremely talented soldiers nerve.  
She just watched until the work leader was out sight. She realised that when the biggest problem was a sewage pipe it was actually a pretty good situation to be in. And why should it not be. Things were looking good now. It was three months since the battle of The Pit and the last threat too the Capital Wasteland was gone. Elder Lyons had started with what he called the modernization of the wasteland. A five year plan that would bring this area to its former glory. Or at-least create some sense of civilization. Since TLW was gone she was appointed as the main overseer of the project. Sarah Lyons had also been promoted. Annabelle had said that the nerve endings had really taken a beating, and she had severed signs of shellshock and mental exhaustion. So with that in mind Sarah had the choice of leading the Steels for another year or two before se would either collapse, or should could take some months off and then come back. With great irritation she said yes to the later one. But after two weeks with basically sleeping, eating and going to the bathroom she had to admit that it was nesscesary. She had taken the top suite at Vernon hotel, and every day a scribe came too her with some new books that she could read trough. With that in mind it was Reilly that had the seniority and was basically the commander in chief of 1000 soldiers and a sizeable air fleet. But that also meant doing idiotic task like organising and leading the work around.

But it was all worth it when the good news were starting to go in. After the battle Reilly organized the effort of salvaging Legion equipment. They had too leave without most of the equipment. There were tons of weapons, ammunition and food that could be used. Unfortunately the artillery that TLW blew up was beyond salvaging. It was basically a big cube of melted metal. And then there was the case of the tribes that organised themselves to fight back against the Legion. Some diplomatic connection needed to be established. This was Sarah's department, but the last months it was also Reilly's problem. The solution were thankfully done by the regulators. After the scums of the Capital Wasteland was basically eradicated they lost purpose. They were now patrolling the huge areas of trade routes. Santiago who were in charge had perfectly organized themselves into smaller cells and became the hope of the wastelands behind the Pit. This again led to the other case. The demolition of the wall. It was something of a big case amongst the advisors of the Citadel. Some argued it was needed, but other said the the defence perimeter was now the Pit and the material used for the wall could be used for the re-construction effort. Anyhow, Reilly did not have a meaning in this case and was just waiting for someone too make the decision. She looked at her watch. It was only nine in the morning. Time to go back too the Capital wasteland. If she hurried it would only take an hour or so.

When she arrived at the Mall area she realised how beatiful it now had become. Was it like this people lived before the great war? It was like paradise. People walking around the streets smiling. The only people having guns were the paramilitary guards that stood watch at the street corners. The vendors had now gone inside an sold their goods at their store. The grass had been coming up on the green patch between the roads. Some kids playing and from her view there were more renovated buildings than destroyed one. She had taken a look at the lastest cencus. 74 percent lived under stable roof. 85 percent of them again had water and electricity in their apartments. Right now they were only allowed electricity 8 hours a day, but within 2 years they were hoping too increase it. The problem was that the only electricity source came from two places. The reactor under the citadel and the batteries at jefferson memorial. Of course Rivet City had their own supply, but it was barely keeping up with demands from the engineers and scientist now working there.  
The solution was simple. They needed the generators from vault 101. It was a kind of dilemma. Only 2 hours away from Megaton it was in the middle of the capital wasteland, but no one have heard from them since TLW was expelled 2 years ago.

She looked at the Washington Memorial. It was a low priority project when the re-construction had started, but finally it was time to start finishing it. The problem was that it was difficult to replace the metal-plates that were covering the hole. Some steels had volunteered to climb up and start with the work. It was estimated as a 5-6 monts work. Then she looked at the most magnificent, beautiful building that she had ever laid eyes on. The capitol building.  
They had started renovating it over a year ago, and now it was starting to be done. Red had done a magnificent job. The stairs were cleaned and shined. The broken places had been been replaced with stone with the similar colours, found in a stonefield and been brought here by caravans, one big stone at a time. It had then been slipped and shaped so it looked it never was broken. The inside of the building had been renovated. The work to sterilize the room had taken all of the sterilization the could produce for two months. And not too mention the removal of the Behemoth. Some actually suggested to let it rot and then remove the pieces. An idea that was rejected by Red immediately. They used up eight laser rifles just to vaporise the parts, and then they used a day to clean up and remove the dust. From there on it was easy work. Sterilize, replace and repaint. Reilly had taken a trip around the place two days ago. It was then 95% ready for use. Elder Lyons had said that he wanted that the Mall should be run from there instead of the citadel as soon as possible. Right now people were looking for chairs, desk and electronically equipment that could be used. Before the building could be used and intercom system had to be installed. Some security measures like a metal detector was to be installed, and hopefully they could implement a card system like the one at third link as soon as possible. It would truly be the dawn of the new age.

She went back to the citadel where Scribe Wergeland waited for her.  
"Good news Reilly" he said with a smile.  
" Have they finally found the recipe for the famous Philadelphia cheese steak sandwich?" she was being sarcastic.  
"No, not yet. Still have two teams looking for it." he said with out a flinger of a smile, was he serious?.  
"I will let Olivier tell you about it." Wergeland said while he followed her into the meeting room. Oliver was the liason between the third link and the Citadel. If he was here it meant that the Novac had found something that was important enough too send Oliver and calling in the security meeting. They walked into the meeting room where Elder Lyons, Oliver and Scribe Rotschild was. But also Hanibal was there. After the Lincoln Memorial was fully restored he had been appointed as the head ambassador of the Mall. That meant that he was the one in charge of the diplomatic contact and all the ambassadors answered to him. If he was here now it meant that some new contact was or were being established.  
Oliver was dressed in the military outfit. He was a man with oliven-brown skin and a good sets of muscles. A child of the wasteland where the strongest one survived. He was being recruited by the steels only days before the attack on Jefferson memorial and had climbed the rank after leading successful raids against raiders. It was Novac who recommend him as the liason.  
"Good morning. At approximately 09.00 we established communication too vault 101. As mentioned in the report this time it was not a one-way communication, but a dialogue with the vault, established by the vault."  
This suprised many, the last year they never have directed the Third link.  
" The dialogue was brief, they wanted to invite a small delegates, no more than four people too the vault. They were to be there at 21.00 tonight. The vault door will be open for five minutes before it closes again."  
"Why now?" Reilly asked.  
"We dont know madam. It is belived from the brief pick-ups transmission they have that there are some general misdialogue about the status of the vault after the...incident with The lone wanderer."  
Reilly knew about that. TLW had to report it too so the the third link could put it in the archives. Many people died and when TLW was finally expelled it was Amata Almodovar that put in charge of the vault.  
"So whats the plan." Hanibal asked.  
"I suggest that Reilly and you go there, accompanied by two steels. I doubt that they would risk a war by doing anything against you, but you might meet a isolanist faction that dont like the outside. Anyways, we dont know what they want so both the ambassador and you would suffice. And since TLW is looking for the enemy in New York, you two are the one with the best reputation.  
She had to agree with that.

It was fifteen minutes before 21.00. Reilly had handpicked two Steels too this mission herself. One of them was the towering giant, at least 2 meters tall, with the name of Gibson. Like others Steels he had been recruited long before TLW came into the picture, and he had been trough both Paradise Falls and the Pitt campaigns. He was chosen both because of his fighting skills and for his visually tremendous looks. The other guy was named Glover. Unlike Gibson that were the muscles, he was the brain. He was not technically a soldier, but a scribe. But the last year he like everyone else had to go trough elementary training. He was learned how to use the steel armor and shoot good enough to hit something in battle. But unlike total useless soldiers like Rotschild, he actually showed some talents in the fighting game too. He was a good shooter, and had some muscles to support him in close quarter battles. He was not scary looking, he looked as the average man. His talent was engineering. He could fix almost anything. He was vital in the process of getting the Prime done, and he was a key factor in more of the advanced infrastructure jobs around the Mall. Reilly had taken him with her because she had a feeling that the vault contacted the Mall of internal problems with something. A technical genius was handy in that case.

They walked to Megaton, a surprisingly short trip when the road is almost paved and nothing in the wasteland is actually trying to kill you each meter of the road. Reilly actually enjoyed the walk, she saw many people trying to build their farmhouses around the area and soldiers patrolling the area. The former supermarket that was build at the coast of the river was long an architectural nightmare. Nobody knew what to do with it. The town of Greyditch that had become a trade-center for people that did not want to the take the trip to the mall diverted almost all the trafic and it faded to darkness. Some suggested it as a government structure, but it would cost to much. The problem was still up and Reilly hoped that some one would come with a suggestion for it.

They rested for two hours in Springvale. A local woman named Silver had taken over one of the buildings, and with a government grant opened a bed and breakfast for the ones traveling to Arefu and the east-northern borders. It was an 8 rooms with a kitchen and serving room and had water and power. The luxury of it had attracted many travellers that was not living in Megaton and soon she would be a wealthy lady. The only problem was the ghouls. She complained that the ghouls that followed the church of atom was scaring away the customers. Reilly knew about that problem. The relationship between human and Ghouls was something that TLW had to take care of when he came back. He was the only one with enough influence and charisma to actually make the peace.

"Its time" Gibson said looking at his Pip-boy. Reilly took one look and agreed. They all paid for a meal of brahim steak and walked out of the Inn. They walked up the cliff and opened up the tree-door that blocked the path into the mountain. The air was chilling here. The skeletons of former people were removed to the side. After all, this was not the first time diplomats tried to establish contact with the vault. Some had tried to knock on the big vault door or tried to override the controls on the outside, but to no avail. It was still one minute left when Reilly, Gibson and Glover stood outside the gigantic circle shaped door.  
"I wonder whats inside?" Gibson said.  
" I wonder how they could survive without inbreeding for 200 years." Glover added.  
More he could not say. They all heard it.  
The first click, then the second, then the third.  
The sound was strange. It was like some mechanism on the other side started. A sound of a key that went into the lock.  
Suddenly the door went backwards, showing the rails, and then it rolled to the side. The vault was open and they looked at mechanic control room.  
But not only that.  
Stationed at the door opening in a line, six men was aiming their rifles at them. At the balcony was another five, and there was tree on the stairs also. Fourteen men in total, all in something that looked like pre-war riot gear, helmet and automatic submachine guns. Gibson and Dover reacted as soldiers did and lifted their laser rifle and plasma rifle against the men. They did not have their helmet on, which made the armor useless with a headshot.  
"Stand down" a female voice said from the vault, and the men in riot gear lowered their weapons and moved aside too let trough a young, black-haired woman. She was beatiful enough to believe that TLW was attracted to her. But Reilly sliped that thought for a second only before she again become the professional solder that she was.  
"Stand down guys," she said, and the two steels reluctantly did what they were told.  
" I am sorry for that, but we had to make sure that an invading army did not try to overrun us. "I am the Overseer of this Vault, but you can call me Amata Almodovar."  
"I am Reilly, the representative of the Mall."  
"I see, i hoped that Gregg was coming."  
"Who?"  
" From the transmission that we have listening too, i believe that he is better known as TLW."  
"Oh yeah, no i am sorry. He is busy in New York."  
" The city?" Amata asked.  
"Yeah".  
"Well, havent things changed since he...left...us. Anyways welcome in."  
The three delegation members stepped inside the vault. As soon as they walked up the stairs Amata ordered the close down of the vault. Now Reilly saw how it worked, and she was somehow right. There was a lock-mechanism that closed it and it was closed good.

They walked trough the main hall were people was watching them from the railings on the second floor. Many had disappointment in their eyes when they saw that the TLW was not among them. Reilly took a look at them. They were all wearing blue overalls with the number 101 in yellow on their back. The number of the vault. Things were not so bad in here. The flour lightning was a nuisance but they were safe in good sterile environments and they had some luxury items like pool tables, movie options and warm meals and a good bed.  
Amara guided them into the living quarters of the room. Reilly noticed that two of the guards were also following them with the submachine guns drawed.  
"Its late now, so i hope that we can start fresh tomorrow." Amara said.  
She opened a door into something that looked like an apartment. There were three beds lined up there.  
"There is a toilet and shower at the end of the room. There is some food and Nuka cola in the fridge. I am sorry, but i thought that there were three mens that were coming." Amara said.  
" Don't worry about that, we are from the wasteland, all of us lived most of our lives without sleeping in one." Reilly said.  
"Good, the light will be one all the time to avoid infestion of cockroach. But there are some sleeping eye patchs on the beed. There will be a guard outside all night. So just knock on the door and he will let you out. Have a good night." Amara said.  
The door closed and they all could hear Amara lock it from the outside. The panel on the right switched from blue to red and they saw two guards standing outside the door from the large window. Reilly did not notice before after half an hour that she had the opportunity to freeze the window to avoid people looking in.  
After the long process of getting out of the steel armor they all took a warm shower. Reilly went in first and noticed that even though she had had some luxury of doing it the last year, this was different. The water was stable warm and the shower had a good pressure. She enjoyed it. When they were all done they discussed about having one standing guard all the time. But decided against it. What would it do if one was alive if the vault really wanted to hurt them?  
Even though the eye patches the flour-lights was noticeable enough to annoy her, she feel asleep after some minutes. The bed was comfortable. Very comfortable, so comfortable that she...zzzz

She woke up several hours later. She felt great. She never have sleept better than she had today. Glover and Gibson were all sleeping heavily still, she decided to wake them up. Not before she brought them back from Moebius kingdom the doors lock was opened. A voice started to speak from the intercom.  
"This is Guard Reiter, can i open up?" he asked.  
Reilly went to the intercom. "Yeah, we are dressed."  
The door slided up and a man, dressed in the same blue overalls as everyone else, but with a body protection armor and helmet with a glass visor also came in. He had a ordinary pistol in his sleeve.  
" Amata has asked me to guide you too her office. Please make yourself ready."  
It took another five minutes and a quick showe before they all walked down the dimly lighted corridor. Something was out of the ordinary. Four more guards had meet them at the lobby and followed after. She saw courious onlockers watching them from every corner of the vault.  
"They dont look like mutants" she heard a child say before it was silenced by its guardian by putting a hand off his walked up some stairs and meet Amata sitting at her chair, behind her was some monitors and a gigantic vault.  
"Welcome, i hope you have sleept well" she said.

The first hours was formalities. Reilly updated Amata on the condition of the Capital Wasteland and she looked both suprised and shocked. Many times had Amata throwed an unsecure look too heir councellor that stood next to her. Amata admitted that she did think that the wasteland had not improved itself that much, but then Reilly told her about the Basin and that the seeds from a tree had fertilized the area. Then it came to the negotiations. Amata was reculant to open the vault, but the need for outside life and upgrades on the vault was nessecary.  
She told Reilly about the problem that the vault have had.  
" After my father was removed the need for change was necessary. We listen to your radio broadcasts and heard about the things that were happening. Some of my advisors thought it was a trick, but many believed it was salvation. You have to understand that there are four or five generations of vault dwellers here. To live on the surface would be a change not everyone is willing to make."  
"But you are?" asked Reilly.  
" As said, it is a necessity. The only thing working is our nuclear generator. It provides tons of electricity, but it cant do anything when our water purifier breaks or when our crops fails. The need for change is needed. Especially since we lost so many people after Gre...TLW did what he did."  
Reilly had heard about the stories, but if TLW had not done what he did, noone of this would be possible and the Enclave would still run the land.  
" Don't take me wrong, no one of us feels a grudge against him, but the situation is what it is." Amata said.  
" So what are you terms?"  
Amata took a look at a paper sheet. "I am grateful for the assistance and faith you have shown us." She was talking about Glover and Gibson who had started working on the water purifier. "But there are something that we just can't give up."  
"Like?" Reilly asked, somehow having an idea what the answer was.  
"Independence. This place must be in the control of the vault dwellers. No taxes or no soldiers from the mall as our superiors. We will have normal relationship and trade agreements with you and you will pay us for the electricity." Amata swallowed. Reilly noticed it, she had been playing this game before. It was a high ball offer, something that she would compromise with to get a better deal when they started negotating.  
" You know that wont happen." Reilly said with a low voice. "You generator will be a lifeblood of the wasteland. We will not accept that you, with no notice or warnings can turn of the switch and close the vault and leave us blacked out. Our counter-offer is this. You will have some powers here, just like mayor of a town. But you will be a part of the capital Wasteland with all the benefits and consequences. You will allow foreign visitors here and allow your dwellers free travel in and out of the vault. We will set up an office here, like a liason officer and you will be part of the internal market."  
"And if we say no?" Amata asked.  
" As you said, we will not force anyone. But remember this, we are depended on each other. When we walk out of here, that will be it. That vault door of yours will also be a wall that seperate you from the outside. When the water purifier, crop seeder or anythting else is broke, dont ask for help, because we wont answer. We will be exactly what you have been for us. You want to go alone, then you will take the benefits and the consquences."  
The silence went trhough the room.

Two days later Amata visited the Mall with some of the most influential members of the vault. The doubt they had about the outside was quickly removed when they saw the society that were being established. The few hardliners realised that when the stimpack, brahim steaks, beers and water came into the vault, they would loose their support for the isolationism policy. Especially when they found out that the caps generated from the generator would make them wealthy. An agreement was signed that day on the steps on the capitol that proclaimed the vault as an part of the Capital Wasteland. The engineer started the day after with connecting the generator too the main grid. The earliest projections said that within a short time the electricity would go from 8 to 12 hours online.  
For Reilly it was just another day in the office.

Three days passed when she was awaken by a guard, summoned by the Elder Lyons. He had ordered the daily work to be removed from the citadel to the Capitol and his office was filled with boxes of documents. Reilly had to admit that there was something majestic about the office. Unlike the dark coridors of the ruins she previously scavenged this was light and looked beautiful, even trough there was a mess around. The oval windows covered a whole was and was placed behind a beatiful carved treedesk. It was a leaders office.  
" Welcome my dear" he said when she entered the room through the gigantic double doors. He walked slowly towards hear and gave her a kiss on the cheek. There was two young boys in the room also. Both sitting on the floors and sorting out the folders and putting them in a archivist desk on the side.  
" Guys, go take a break, you have both worked so hard." Lyons said, seconds later they were gone.  
" Giving the young ones the morals of labour is maybe the most important thing we can do."  
Reilly looked around. "What did you want to talk to me about?"  
"Oh yes. I have read the first report about the vault. i have appointed Theodore to be our man there. He will be leaving tomorrow. I hoped that you can fill him in on the experiences that you have had with Amata and the vault."  
Reilly thought it was a good appointment. Theodere was one of the scribes in the Citadel that basically had nothing to do after working several years with the Liberty Prime.  
"Of course Elder, was that all?"  
" No, not all. I need to you to do another thing for me also." he said. "We are getting technical advanced in a rate no one could predict. And therefore there many problems that arise. One of them is the economical one."  
Reilly knew the problem. Right now the economy was based on the caps. For centuries bottle-caps and barting was the way to do buisiness on. It worked in a mercantilism society when there was just changes and not growth, but no the situation was changed. The last year alone the growth was somewhere between 300 and 500%. Not suprising with a society that actually started to produce things and not just scavenge. But it created a heavily pressure on the caps since you needed caps to visualise the new created wealth. And caps started to a problem. First of all, there were starting to become a shortage of it sine more and more people started to earn them, the second thin was that it was not a regulated currency, and with some skills and equipment people could produce their own. To maintain an economic growth, there was serious need for a more stable, and goverment founded currency.  
" Yeah, we were talking about this. It seems that the only way is to use the same methods, the pre-war currency." She said.  
" I agree, but we need to control the production of it also. While you were gone the council came to a conclussion." He walked back to the desk and took up a sheet with drawings. It was painting of some bills. She looked at them, there was sketches of five different bills, front and back. There was a 10,20,50,100 and 200 bills. "We were considering putting out a competition for the best design, but i think those will do." Lyons said. They were all pinkish colored with a picture something in the middle. The 10 one had the picture of the capitol, while the 100 had the citadel on it.  
"They are beautiful, what will you call them?" she said.  
" A cap" he said smilingly. "To avoid confussion. 10 cap will be equal to a 10 bill. Our hope is to outphase the bottle caps in 3-4 years."  
" Thats good, what do you need me for?" she asked. He putted the sketches back in the drawer.  
" There are some problems of course. We choose pink since its the easiest color to get, and we are currently in the process of changing a Tec-co production facility into a paper factory. Our scribes says that they will have understood the process and built a factory within the year. So there are two problems, the first one is to create measures that will make counterfeiting almost impossible, and the second is to actually have a factory that creates the money from paper. I need you to find a good place, and make it secure. Can you do that?" Lyons asked.  
" Don´t worry, i think i have the spot for you" Reilly said.

Early the next morning she took the hour long walk to the abandoned supermarket outside grayditch. With her was two engineers, three soldiers and a scribe.  
" So what do you guys think?" she asked while walking along the dark shelves of the supermarket. After the clearing of the raiders years ago, the place had rot away.  
" We have to remove everything, it has to be a empty shell before we can do anything." one of the engineers said.  
" From a security perspective its a good place. The water on the left makes it easier to defend. We will need to build a tower and a fence around the place of course."  
She smiled. Things went better than expected now. She walked out of the store and let the engineers do what they did best. She looked at the sun, then at the crystal clear water. Then for the first time ever, on the other side of the river, she saw something that she only have a read about. A deer. One of the millions of species thought to be extinct. It feeded on the green grass that had sprung up and the meter high bushes, in some years they would be trees. It must have surivived within the Paradise she tought and looked as it sipped from the water of the lake. She allowed herself a smile.


End file.
